Take the Sky From Me
by MrsTater
Summary: "We lost our son, forever." For fifteen years, Han and Leia tried everything they knew to keep him. By Bratanimus & MrsTater
1. My Love, My Land

_**A/N: Bratanimus and MrsTater have been friends for years, since we met in the**_ **Harry Potter** _ **fandom. This is our first fanfic collaboration, because we just couldn't resist filling in the blanks in the Solo family's story between the original trilogy and**_ **The Force Awakens.** _ **For our purposes, the only "canon" we've utilized is what we actually see in the films, not in any of the novels, graphic novels, or interviews from the film cast and crew. Based on what we see in**_ **TFA,** _ **this is our interpretation of what might have come before. We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed writing it. (Although "enjoy" doesn't seem like nearly the right word for the amount of feeeeeeels we poured into it. :))**_

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 **1\. My Love, My Land**

A howl pierced Han's eardrum through the commlink, and he poked his head out of the maintenance access bay to glare toward the cockpit at the Wookiee responsible for almost deafening him with sarcasm.

"Whaddya mean, _What've I done now_?" Han shot back. "Wasn't me who piloted the _Falcon_ straight into those falling boulders in that pass on Naalol and damaged the-"

A woof from Chewie, accompanied by the gesture of a shaggy hand. Han's scowl remained until he followed it, then dropped as his gaze settled on a female figure approaching down the hangar with a purpose in her stride that defied her petite size.

"Great. What _have_ I done now?"

Chewie barked out a laugh, which earned him another glare, though Han quickly replaced it with his most winning grin as he clambered down to greet Leia.

"Afternoon, your royal loveliness," he said, rubbing his greasy hands on a shop rag that had already been used so much it just made them dirtier. "I'd kiss you, but I'm covered in oil. And not the sexy kind," he added with a wink.

In his ear, Chewie groaned and Han, smirking, tossed the cloth at the cockpit viewport before returning his attention to Leia. Who, predictably, looked simultaneously aggravated and affected by his charm. Han noted with satisfaction that her eyes had gone to his lips, and no slight degree of effort was required to lift them up to meet his gaze.

"That's just as well," she said, "as I think we've spent more than enough time kissing when we should have been talking."

Now it was Han who had to put some effort into maintaining his cool expression so she wouldn't see his inward panic at her implication of every man's most dreaded phrase, which Chewie woofed in his ear: _We need to talk_.

Damn.

"Do you?" he replied, stepping forward to close some of the distance between them. "'Cause from where I stand, we did a hell of a lot of talking before we ever got around to kissing."

"We did," Leia acquiesced, raising her gaze to maintain eye contact.

"So in my opinion, we're just making up for lost time."

"In your opinion."

"Uh-huh."

Han moved in even closer, so that Leia's gaze was at about chest level and he could smell the sweetness of her perfume above the stink of engine grease. She steadfastly refused to look up at him, but when he gently took her chin between thumb and forefinger to tilt her face up toward his, she didn't flinch away.

Not until he bent his head to brush his mouth to hers in spite of the oil and her opinion about how much time they spent kissing.

" _Han_ ," she murmured, a slightly exasperated exhale he felt warmly against his lips, and pressed her palm to his chest.

"You're right." He straightened up.

"You're admitting I'm right?"

Han smothered a smirk as he noticed a smudge of grease on her defiantly jutted chin. Without wiping it away-it would be fun to see how long it took her to notice, and how she reacted-he looked over her head at the scene of the hangar, a hive of mechanics, pilots, and droids. "We _should_ take this someplace private. To _talk_ ," he clarified, anticipating her argument, swinging his gaze back down to see her mouth open in retort.

Leia pressed her lips together, smiling, although Han didn't miss the way it failed to reach her eyes, or the fine lines that etched the smooth skin around them. She was too young for that, despite how much those eyes had seen. It could only mean something was really eating at her.

"Okay, Chewie ol' pal, you heard her highness. She wants to come aboard and have a private audience, so I can't have you in the way."

Han was glad the reply about being his own worst cockblock was for his ear only, although Leia's expression as she turned to go up the gangway told him she had a pretty good guess about the gist of it. Probably didn't need the Force to do it, either.

In the _Falcon_ 's main hold, Han took off his headset and went straight to the corner nook that served as a galley to wash the oil off his hands. He really needed to upgrade it for Leia if it was going to be _their_ ship, he thought, not for the first time since Endor. Yavin 4, Hoth, now Mirrin Prime, the rebel bases were all the same: gaping maws of need, where personal wishes got pushed to the bottom of everyone's list.

"Can I get you anything? Caf?" He leaned forward to examine the contents of the dinged-up chrome durasteel Spiran caf pot on the cook surface and tried to remember who'd brewed it, him or Chewie, and more importantly, _when_.

"Thank you. I've had so much already that I'm jittery."

Han glanced over his shoulder to see her pacing and frowned. Not that Leia wasn't always keyed up, but this was more than her usual state of over-caffeination or restless energy or even agitation. She was like a caged animal. She pressed one hand to her stomach, too, almost as if she were in pain. That time of the month?

He turned on the heating element beneath the caf pot to rewarm it. Hell, he didn't care if this sludge had been sitting here for a week, he needed to be fortified for this conversation.

If Leia was actually going to have it. The fact that she hadn't started talking at him by the time he'd heated the caf and sat down at the holotable was as worrying as her pacing. He tried not to let it show as he stretched an arm across the back of the seat. He wished she'd come sit next to him, nestled in the crook of his shoulder where she fit so perfectly with her head tucked under his chin, but she clearly wanted some space at the moment, so he stretched out his legs, too.

"So... what haven't we talked about because you've been too busy kissing me? Then we can get the talking over with and resume kissing."

He raised his mug to his lips, grinning over the rim at her as she stopped and faced him, but she didn't smile back, only gave a slight shake of her head.

"You're so sure that's the outcome."

The caf burned his tongue, swirled thick and bitter around his mouth and down his throat. "We kinda have a history, sweetheart."

"Yes. But do we have a future?"

The question hovered suspended between them, as if it were in fact a message transmitted by holo. That she could even ask it, after all these years, after everything they'd been through pushing them together only to pull them apart, seemingly forever, before finally putting them back together again, was alarming.

And angering.

"Why don't you tell me? You're the one with the Jedi powers." Caf sloshed from his mug as he gestured.

If Leia had rolled her eyes any harder, they would've generated their own gravitational field.

"I'm _Force-sensitive_ , I don't have Jedi powers. Luke wants to train me. Mon Mothma and the members of her cabinet want my continued assistance with the New Republic." She always remembered to call it that, unlike Han, who still hadn't adjusted to the Alliance's name change following the Battle of Endor. "And you…"

The bitter taste of the old caf clung to Han's mouth as he waited for her to go on. She didn't. Just stood there, staring at him with her wide, beautiful eyes, and he realized she wasn't telling him, she was _asking_. Asking him what he wanted from her.

Steaming mug in hand, he swung his feet off the seat, boots thunking against the metal grating that formed the _Falcon_ 's floor.

"Hey," he said, crossing the small space to her in a couple of strides. "I just want you."

He reached for her, but his fingers met only air as she sidestepped him to resume pacing.

" _What_ is all over my chin? _Han_ …"

She'd caught her reflection in the shiny surface of the caf pot, and swiped vigorously at the oil he'd left on her chin. It wasn't quite as funny as he'd thought it would be.

"Neither being a Jedi nor fighting the Empire is conducive to having a family," she said.

"I'm not sure whether you're breaking up with me, or asking me to marry you."

"Then that makes two of us."

Leia might not know how to fight with a lightsaber like her brother, but she sure as hell was a master of verbal blows. Maybe it was the damn _Force-sensitivity_ , who even knew?

And Han had always been fool enough never to run from a fight.

"You said you loved me," he fired back. "Or weren't you sure about that, either?"

"Of course I was sure. I _am_ sure. But-"

"But nothing!" His voice echoed off the hard surfaces of the hold. He hadn't meant to shout. "Either you love me or you don't," he went on, at first bringing his volume down a notch, though it steadily rose again with his temper. "You want to get married or to part ways."

"Don't do this, Han. Not now, not like this."

"You're the one who wanted to talk." He spread his arms wide, sloshing even more of what remained of his caf. Leia's nose wrinkled as her gaze fell to watch it drip through the grating. "So by all means, _let's talk_."

She continued to stare at the floor, face pale, both arms wrapped around her middle. Not at all her usual princess-perfect posture.

"Could you please get rid of that swill?" she asked in a pinched-sounding voice. "It smells like Bantha dung."

Han exhaled, bent slightly at the waist in a mocking bow. "Your worship's wish is my command."

She winced, and instantly he regretted taking an attitude. This was how it always ended, with him shooting off his mouth-though this was the first time he was the one asking to define their relationship, and still he was screwing everything up. If Leia had been unsure about a future with him before, she'd probably made up her mind by now. Maybe he really wasn't cut out for permanent relationships, even if he finally had decided he was ready for one.

The unpleasant thought coiled around his heart and squeezed. As if it were a physical thing he could shake off, he stalked around her to the sink, dumped what was left of the caf down the drain, resisted the urge to throw the mug across the hold and hear the satisfying shatter of ceramic. He could probably break the handle with his grip alone. Deliberately, he set it in the basin, and leaned over the counter, clutching the edge of the counter till his knuckles ached.

"I'm pregnant."

Han wheeled around. "You're-"

He stopped short as the meaning of what she'd said hit him, almost physically. He slumped back against the counter, scrabbling with his hands for balance again.

"Pregnant," Leia repeated.

Han was stupidly grateful she supplied the word for him, because he couldn't quite make his lips and tongue form it, let alone wrap his brain around it. His eyes dropped from her face to her waistline, which was as tiny as ever.

"When did you…?"

"Find out? Get in this condition?"

"Yes."

"I've suspected for about a week."

"A week! And you didn't think maybe you should've let me in on the secret?"

"It was too early to know anything for certain. You would only have worried."

"Yeah, but we could've had this conversation then, and you wouldn't be picking fights with me about not talking about stuff."

Leia's nostrils flared with a sharp intake of breath, but as she clenched her jaw, she seemed to swallow the point. "Maybe I shouldn't have kept it from you."

" _Maybe?_ "

Han knew he was just being petulant now that the flare-up of temper had subsided, but he was left feeling more than a little bit hurt that she'd kept it from him. Sure, it was sweet that she hadn't wanted him to worry, but why had she been so sure that would be his reaction?

"What's done is done," Leia said, coolly composed, as in command of herself and the situation as she was in the battle room. "This morning I confirmed it. Eight weeks along."

"Eight weeks. Huh."

Leia said nothing, but when he returned his gaze to her face he saw her regarding him from beneath raised eyebrows, as if she were expecting him to say something further.

 _Eight weeks._

He felt his own brow arch above widening eyes in realization. "Eight weeks ago we were on Endor." Celebrating the Rebel victory. The corner of his mouth tugged upward, and he stood up a little straighter. "Guess the _Falcon_ wasn't the only one of us who fired accurately that day."

"This is hardly a joking matter."

No, it wasn't. And he'd be damned if he just stood here like a spectator and provided the witty commentary while he watched the only woman he'd ever loved leave him because he couldn't take this seriously. Pushing off the counter, Han went to her, soles scuffing on the floor. Again his arms went out to hold her. When had that become as instinctive to him as breathing? This time, she let him lay his hands on her shoulders.

"What do you want, Leia?"

She looked up at him, brow furrowed.

"You talked about what Luke wants for you…what the New Republic wants…hell, even what _I_ want. What about what _you_ want? Have you thought about that?"

Her chin tightened, lips pursing in an expression that clearly said she hadn't. His chest constricted at the thought of her going through her adult life wanting nothing for herself because of her laser focus on the rebellion. Maybe, too, she'd been afraid to want because of all she'd lost. Her parents, her world…him, nearly. But she'd gotten him back, and Luke, the brother she'd never known she had.

"Do you want to be a Jedi?" he prompted.

A brief hesitation, then she heaved out a breath and said, "No. I don't want to let Luke down but…I think I've proven my ability to do good in the Galaxy without wielding a lightsaber."

"Okay."

Han squeezed her shoulders, as much to reassure her as from relief he wasn't going to lose her to the Force-though he'd feel a little more assured if not being on board with that whole vow of celibacy was one of her reasons. Heaven only knew politicians didn't make any such promises.

"So that answers my next question: you want to continue working for the New Republic."

"Well, yes," Leia replied, in much the same way she'd answered him when he asked if she loved Luke. "After spending my entire adult life fighting for it, I certainly can't walk away now."

"Like the Damerons?" Han interjected, a little more bitterly than he intended.

Leia had been disappointed when two of their top pilots, a married couple, resigned their posts, but she'd understood Shara and Kes' reasoning, not wanting to continue taking so many risks when they had a young son. If he was honest, he'd wished Leia would stop risking her life, after the close shave she'd had with Shara on a mission to Naboo, even if she didn't have the same reason. His stomach performed a swooping aerial stunt at the realization that in fact she _had_ been pregnant at the time.

"Not exactly like that," Leia retorted. "Obviously we won't be fighting forever, once we've cleared out the last of the Imperial holdouts. I was a senator before I was a general, after all."

"So how is that incompatible with…" A husband. A child. "…a family? I mean…it worked for your parents, right?"

The Organas, not Vader-and if he was struggling to come to terms with that, how much more difficult must that be for Leia?

Han's throat tied itself into a knot. He swallowed, painfully.

"That is…assuming you even want…"

Because he didn't know. She was right; they hadn't ever talked about marrying…carrying on the family line…

"I do," Leia replied, with only the slightest tremor of uncertainty in her voice, "but is it really as simple as that?"

"Well, you see, when a man and a woman love each other very much-"

"I don't mean biologically."

Her confidence returned with her annoyance, along with the twinkle in her eyes and the purse of her lips that told him she even secretly liked his inappropriate jokes. But as she continued to look up at him, her eyes begged for real answers to her questions. It was the way she'd looked at him on Bespin, when he'd brushed his lips across her forehead and his misplaced trust in Lando let her down.

With a heavy sigh, Han released her shoulders, scuffed his hand across his own chin, the stubble prickling.

Ridiculously, her voice reverberated in some back corner of his mind, _scruffy-looking nerf-herder_. Looks aside, he was nobody's idea of a fit consort for a woman like her, much less the picture of stable fatherhood. _You think a princess and a guy like me…?_ Luke's answer had been a resounding no. Of course, Luke liked him better now. So did she, obviously.

"The hell if I know, Leia." Han flopped down onto the holotable seat once again. "I've never really lived my life with any kind of plan or future vision."

It had always been job to job, this mission to the next-if he lived that long.

"So I've noticed."

"Even now that the war's mostly over, I still don't have a clear image of the future."

He paused, unaccustomed to verbalizing his deepest feelings in the open way that came to him now. Then again, he'd never felt anything this deep before. Holding back never got him anywhere with Leia. He forged ahead.

"Only that I can't imagine any version that doesn't have you in it."

Leia's face softened, and this time, when Han stretched his arm out along the top edge of the lounge, she joined him, pressing herself snug against his side as he wrapped both arms around her, resting his cheek against the hair he loved to let down from its intricate arrangements.

For several minutes neither of them spoke, then finally Leia broke the silence.

"It won't be just with me."

"We've established there will be a third smaller person, too. And probably a fourth larger, hairier person."

"And the Republic," Leia said. "It'll be a lot of work, rebuilding it."

"You'll be making a better galaxy for our kid."

"I'll likely have to travel a lot. I don't really know where we'll call home."

"Luckily, I know a guy with a ship."

Her head moved on his shoulder to look up at him with an incredulous expression he knew all too well. "I was going to say they might be able to find us two-bedroom quarters here on base, but...You want us to live on the _Falcon_?"

So he guessed that settled it. They were having a baby. Could she feel his heart about to pound out of his chest?

"Haven't we practically for the last however many years? Come on, picture it. We can hang curtains."

Leia snorted. "Curtains?"

"Rip out one of the crew bunks, put in a crib. Hell, I'll even put in a proper galley."

"About damn time," she said with a husky chuckle.

Han looked around the ship, the vision he'd indulged in his mind's eye suddenly appearing in front of him more clearly than any future he'd ever imagined. And then it blurred.

"I never had anything all my own before," he said through an unexpectedly tight throat. Was he going to _cry_? "Except the _Falcon_."

"All _our_ own," Leia corrected, but as she straightened up to look at him, she wore a pleased little smile.

"That sounds even better."

They fell silent for another moment, looking into each other's eyes as Leia stroked his cheek with gentle fingers. "When did you become so wise?"

"You know, it would be nice if you could at least pretend not to be surprised."

"Sorry. Surprised is my general state of mind at the moment. You really think we can do this? That it's…safe?"

"Why wouldn't it be safe?"

Her eyebrows pulled together, and as she turned, Han felt the tightness in her shoulder as she hunched in on herself.

"Leia?"

"We've made a lot of enemies for ourselves…"

"Most of them are dead," Han said, his hand sliding down from her shoulder to trace circles in the small of her back. "The rest will be soon."

"You're right…I just…have this feeling."

"We've had plenty of those."

Or did she mean a Force feeling?

"It's probably just paranoia," Leia said, although she didn't sound convinced. "The lingering effects of trauma."

They'd had plenty of that, too. Few nights passed that one or the other of them wasn't roused by nightmares about what they'd been through.

"You got nothing to worry about," Han did his best to reassure her. "I'll keep you two safe."

 _You two._ The baby was too small to show any physical sign of its existence-unless, of course, it was the baby that made Leia unable to stand the smell of the caf-and they never even knew it existed until today. Yet already they were connected. _He_ was connected, forever, to his child, his son or daughter, and nothing could ever break that connection. His hand slid back up to her shoulder, drawing her against him again as his other hand covered her smaller one as it rested against her stomach.

"I know you will," Leia said, weaving their fingers together.

"You're not so bad at protection, either."

Han half expected her to make a joke about all the times she'd saved his sorry ass, but instead she looked up at him with those imploring eyes again.

"We'll be good parents?"

"Sure," Han said. "I'm great with kids."

"You are?"

He grinned at her look of surprise. "I raised myself, and look how I turned out."

"Very reassuring."

"And yet you want be with me."

"Is that a proposal?"

"Is that a yes?"

In answer, Leia leaned in, head tilted to kiss him. Before she could, Han caught her chin and held her back. "I think we should talk about this first."

She rolled her eyes. "If you want me to give you an answer, you've got to ask me a question first."

"All right then, princess. Will you marry me?"

"Yes, you big stud, now will you shut up and kiss me?"

He grabbed her ass to lift her off her feet, and Leia's shriek of laughter echoed through the _Falcon_.


	2. Where I Cannot Stand

_**A/N: Bratanimus and I are so grateful for your comments on chapter one. To all who requested more, here it is! We'll post seven chapters in all.**_

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 **2\. Where I Cannot Stand**

As soon as Chewbacca boarded the _Falcon_ , a piercing scream made him clamp his hands to his ears and let out an involuntary moan. Following the sound, he found Han pacing next to the holotable with his pup's wailing, swaddled body held against his chest as he jostled him gently him up and down, quiet shushes and comforting hums directed into the dark head of hair. Ben's eyes were screwed shut, but his round, toothless mouth gaped wide in an ongoing shriek that seemed not to require any additional intake of breath to sustain it. The Wookiee groaned again. How could a being so _small_ make such a noise?

"Could you put on some music?" the new father mumbled in a weird, sing-song voice without removing his lips from the hairy little dome beneath them.

Chewbacca continued to protest until he realized that Han was speaking to him. He removed his hands. _Do we even have music?_ he growled.

"Yeah, sure we do. Check the cabinet under the tech station."

Sure enough, he found an old transistor-type tonal playback unit. He set the TPU on top of the technical station and switched it on, huffing with relief when it not only worked, but also appeared to contain a large selection of musical pieces. He chose one at random and, as a slow bass viol composition resonated through the hold, he turned back to face the wailing pup.

The purple circles under Han's eyes betrayed an unending series of sleepless nights, and his slouched shoulders as he cradled his bundle of noise into his chest made him look older than his mere thirty-four years. But the crooked smile was the same as he murmured into the pup's protruding, hairless ear.

Chewbacca held out his arms. _Here, let me take him,_ he knew a thing or two about boy-pups, after all, and though it had been well over a century since he'd held his own, it wasn't the sort of thing you forgot.

Han tilted his head, presenting his best _it's-your-funeral_ expression, and muttered, "Good luck."

Ben weighed nothing. It was like holding a seed pod—a very screechy seed pod. Did all human babies scream this way? If they did, they were fortunate their parents thought they were cute, otherwise the species would've died out long ago. Remembering an old trick he'd seen Malla do, Chewbacca sat on one edge of the lounge seat and turned the pup onto his stomach, resting him on his knees with head turned to one side, and rocked his legs back and forth while rubbing his tensed, vibrating back. Ben stuck his fingers in his mouth and sucked on them. After one more muffled cry around his little knuckles, the screaming stopped.

"Whoa," breathed Han as he sank heavily onto the opposite corner of the curved seat. "I don't know if it's my out-of-date tunes, or the funk of your hairy legs, but thanks, buddy." He rubbed both hands roughly over his face and back through his disheveled hair, then shook his head as though trying to dislodge the dust of a hundred years. "I'm pretty sure in the past three months I've slept about ten hours."

Chewbacca chuckled in sympathy.

"Leia's gotten less than that," he added, resting his elbows on the hologram board.

His face, with a few more lines around his eyes and mouth, looked worn but unexpectedly relaxed. Maybe it was fatherhood. It was possible his young friend was a man at last. Or maybe it was simply the utter bodily surrender that came from unimaginable fatigue.

"Thanks for meeting me here," Han went on, rubbing his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. "You know our base quarters aren't exactly soundproof, so even if I take Ben to give her some rest, Leia can still hear him crying. She's so tired that she's blaming _me_ for all the things she's misplaced. I found her hair pins in the refrigeration unit after she swore I must have taken them for spare parts for the _Falcon_."

 _It wouldn't be the first time._

Ben took his spit-covered fingers out of his mouth, grabbed a handful Chewbacca's leg hair, and yanked. _Ow._

"Thanks for sticking up for your old man, Ben," said Han, his eyes glinting with pride. "But play nice. That's your Uncle Chewie. He may look tough, but he's actually quite delicate."

Han grinned.

Chewbacca loosened the swaddling cloth to free Ben's other hand, at which point the infant pumped both fists up and down so ecstatically you'd have thought he'd rescued him from a dreamvenom snake, so he continued unwrapping him and tossed the blanket onto the holotable. Then he lifted him to his chest, expecting him to grasp and hold on as his own son had done from birth—but he slid right down to his lap again. He snapped his legs together and clumsily caught the baby between both forearms just before he tumbled to the floor.

Clearly his sheepish mumbled apology wasn't enough when he glanced up to see Han's widened eyes, his lanky body already unfolding awkwardly from the low lounge.

"Chewie! Ben is a _human_ baby! He doesn't have grip strength yet!"

 _I'm sorry, I forgot!_

"What the hell were you thinking?" This time his pacing was frantic. "You'd better thank your lucky stars Leia didn't see you, or she'd forbid you to touch him ever again—"

 _You know the only human young I've seen are the war orphans here on the base, and very few of those are infants—_

"She'd probably forbid _me_ to touch him, for being stupid enough to let _you_ touch him."

Out came the pointing finger.

 _Han. Calm down. Ben is fine._

Han raked his hands through his hair again, stalked around some more, and then muttered, "I need a drink."

He stopped walking, cocking his head as though experiencing a sudden epiphany. He held his hands out, palms down as though capturing a scene in front of him. "No. _No_. I need _sleep_. This _baby_ needs to sleep so his _parents_ can sleep. Don't you see?"

He whirled, turning his wild grin and open hands toward Chewbacca as if the Wookiee could make it happen. He paced again. "Sleep! It's the simplest solution to all our problems!"

 _Well…yes._

"I remember sleep," muttered Han to the TPU, which now played a B'ssa nuuvu song that had been popular ten years ago.

A change of subject was in order. _So, when do humans learn how to hold on?_

Han turned to him. "What do you mean, hold on?"

Chewbacca held Ben's hands in his own and gripped them gently to demonstrate. Ben looked up into his eyes and cooed. He cooed back, and Ben's eyes widened at the rumbling sound. With his chubby cheeks he might not quite favor either parent yet, but he had his mother's hair and eyes and, now that he could see it close up, his father's lopsided grin. Chewbacca couldn't help but smile back.

"Oh. Well, see," said Han as he came back to the crescent-shaped lounge seat again, "they don't _learn_ to hold on. It's—it's a strength thing. Babies can't do it. As kids get older, their bodies, their hands, get stronger, and then they can grip."

Chewbacca experimentally pulled his thumbs upward and, sure enough, they easily slipped out of Ben's tiny fists. He gave them back to him and Ben smiled. _So you can carry your child that way, but not your infant? It makes no sense._

Han laughed. "No, we don't carry our kids like that. By the time their hands are strong enough to hang on, they don't need to. By then they can walk by themselves."

 _What do you mean, they don't need to? Don't they ever attach to you?_

"No. We carry our babies. In our arms, usually. Sometimes in a sort of pack, if we need our hands free."

 _You hold onto_ them _? Not the other way around?_

"Exactly."

 _That seems backwards._

Han smiled, his brow furrowed in confusion. "Maybe. But that's how we are."

 _How do they learn to let go, if they never held on in the first place? How do_ you _know when it's time for them to let go?_

"Chewie. I see where this is going, and shut up. You're depressing me."

Chewbacca grumbled but acquiesced, and his friend rubbed a palm over his forehead. It seemed that Han was, as he himself would often quip, hanging on by his fingernails. Granted, Malla had done most of the parenting of Waroo while Chewbacca was fulfilling his life debt to Han, so he hadn't lost much sleep over his own pup. Besides, Wookiees were less demanding than humans, or least _this_ little human.

"Leia's worried about Ben's future," said Han.

Chewbacca huffed in amusement.

"You laugh, but she's trying to make plans."

 _How? Why?_

Han brought his eyebrows and his hands up to frame his next words in maximum drama. " _The Force_."

 _Surely the Force is strong in your son,_ Chewbacca said, looking down into Ben's attentive face, _with Leia and Luke in his family._

He knew better than to mention Vader.

"Probably. But you know how she is. She needs a strategy for everything."

 _What would you need to plan for?_

"His _Jedi training_ ," said Han, as though the Force were a noxious smell rather than a coveted power.

The pajama-clad bundle flapped its arms and Chewbacca chuffed in amusement. Then he realized that Han wasn't laughing along. He looked up at him.

 _How soon?_

"I convinced her to wait. I told her his… _abilities_ would emerge soon enough, if he has them. Then we can think about training." Han slouched against the seat, letting his head flop back and his eyes close, and his tanned neck looked oddly vulnerable above the white shirt he always wore. "It's all so much to think about."

He paused, eyes still closed, nostrils flaring as he breathed, and Chewbacca knew he was thinking about whether or not he would say whatever he wanted to say next.

Finally, he did. "I just want to be a _dad_ , you know? And I want Ben to be a kid for as long as he can. Longer than I was."

 _Yes._

Han kept his eyes closed for a long time, and Chewbacca wondered if he was falling asleep. The music droned on in the background, and Ben began to fuss. He cradled the baby's head, leaned over, and rubbed noses with him. Ben grasped the hair of both cheeks and held on.

 _See? I knew you could do it. Good job, pup._

The pup smiled, giving a contented laugh that sounded like _gheee_ , and pulled.

 _Ow._

Ben giggled, and it was almost like the quiet bleat of an animal, but it was kind of adorable, Chewbacca had to admit. He carefully disentangled Ben's fingers from his hair and sat back, rubbing the baby's warm belly; his hand completely covered his torso.

As he caressed the pup, whose sleepy eyes blinked more and more slowly, he looked around at the _Falcon_. Han's ship. Chewie's. _Theirs_. This hold alone contained more memories than he could summon. Given the short lifespans of humans, he was certain someday remembrances would intrude when he least expected, or wished, them to.

But Han had Leia, and now they both had Ben, and the boy would grow up on this vessel, one way or another, so the _Falcon_ had Ben, too. _And so do I_ , he told himself. _If this family wants me, I am theirs, and they are mine._ It could be a new beginning for all of them.

"What's on your mind?"

Chewbacca looked at Han to find one eye had opened and regarded him blearily.

 _Just thinking of family._

Han snorted. "You and me both, Chewie."

He grunted and sat forward, elbows resting heavily on the table, the weight of his unspoken thoughts overwhelming the Wookiee; Han wasn't one to ruminate for very long before choosing a course of action. It seemed that he was stuck, and that made Chewbacca uncomfortable.

"Leia's still having those nightmares," Han murmured at last.

Half asleep, Ben let out a cry and started to squirm in Chewbacca's arms. He stood, pacing the floor as Han had done.

"She feels like she's being watched." Han rested his forehead in his hand and stared down at the holotable. "More than watched. Stalked. _Hunted_. I thought the dreams would stop when Ben was born and her hormones got back to normal. But it's been three months and they're worse. The only time she can sleep is when I take the baby. But then _Ben_ can't sleep." He squeezed his temples between the heels of his hands. "I can't win."

Now Ben was crying at full volume again with eyes squeezed shut, and Chewbacca's gentle rocking no longer seemed to help. Han heaved to his feet and shambled to a canvas pack he must have dropped on the floor when he came aboard, stooped, and pulled out a plain cloth and a glass bottle. Uncapping the bottle, he tossed the cloth over one shoulder and the cap into the bag, then stood with arms outstretched. Chewbacca handed him the screaming bundle of thrashing arms and legs, and Han nestled his pup in the crook of one arm and popped the nipple in his open mouth.

"Wake up, little man. Lunchtime." Han tickled the corner of the distraught baby's lips with the nipple to rouse him and let him know that food was there. Ben latched on and started feeding, although he still whimpered from time to time.

"There you go, big guy," Han said in the same sing-song voice he'd used earlier, a smile creeping up his cheeks. "You were hungry, weren't you? Shhhh, I've got you. I've got you, kid."

 _Would Luke train him?_

"He'd have to, wouldn't he? It's kind of his job now, as the last Jedi. And look, I really don't want to talk about it."

 _Why not? Shouldn't a boy prepare for his destiny?_

"What destiny is that, pray tell?" snapped Han, glaring darkly at the Wookiee. The baby started to fuss, as though he agreed with his father. "And since when do you believe in that mumbo jumbo?"

 _So do you._

"Yeah, so? What's that got to do with the price of beans?"

Ben coughed, spewing some of the milk onto his chin, and Han positioned him over his shoulder and patted his back until he heard a tiny burp. Then he cradled him in his elbow again.

"And since you're so intent on Ben holding onto us, let me remind you that Jedi training would encourage the exact opposite. He'd have to go away to train. The Jedi are supposed to let go of close ties."

Chewbacca frowned and said, _You'd still see him. Luke's still involved in the family._

"Barely," Han murmured. "And he doesn't have one of his own."

 _There must be a way to have both. Somehow._

"Don't tell me you're on her side," Han hissed over the suckling noises.

 _I'm on yours._

"Then just…drop it." He exhaled through his nostrils.

Chewbacca turned away and, after a moment, gave a nod. Han was as stubborn as Leia, only he didn't know it. They would revisit this topic sooner or later. Perhaps when he was better rested. But a boy needed to be prepared, and Han should know that better than anyone.

Han sat again while Ben finished his bottle, then he burped him once more and left him on his chest. The boy, contented now, fell asleep, his tiny fist resting on his father's jacket, his little eyes darting around under paper-thin eyelids.

Did human babies dream? And if they did, what did they dream of? Hopefully of Mother and Father and unending love.

 _Han._

He startled awake.

 _Go and sleep. I'll take Ben while he naps._

"Thanks, Chewie. I owe you one."

They both knew that wasn't strictly true, but Han gratefully slipped away to the crew quarters to grab some shut-eye.

It was strange, Chewbacca reflected, sitting alone in the hold with Ben on his lap when he was used to puttering around and repairing things all the time. The _Falcon_ had never been low-maintenance, and she got more and more demanding as she aged. But surely humans needed maintenance, too, and Han probably didn't need him as much as his baby did. So Chewbacca slouched over and examined the pup so that he might know best how to be of service to him later. He memorized Ben's bowlike mouth, and the way his hair swirled in an oceanic storm pattern right near the front, and the length of those delicate fingers tipped with translucent, moon-shaped nails.

He'd just begun to examine the long lashes on his cheeks, each one like a black-uniformed soldier lying on a snowbank, when he heard someone enter the _Falcon_ , shuffling quickly toward the hold and hissing Han's name in a panic.

When Leia appeared in the entrance, her hair was as disheveled as her clothing, and her face bore a faint crease, proof that she had indeed been lying down in their quarters. But her erect posture was fight-ready as her gaze registered first Chewbacca, then the sleeper on his knees.

Upon seeing Ben she relaxed instantly, heaving a ragged sigh as she sagged against the doorway. Then she slid downward as though her legs had given out.

 _Leia!_ Chewbacca said as he gathered the sleeping pup in his arms and stood to go to her.

"The dramatic entrance was a bit much, I grant you, but I'm fine," she said with a wave of one limp hand. "I just had a dream that someone—"

She bit down on whatever she was about to say, choosing instead to push herself to unsteady feet again. With an unconscious swat of one hand she dusted off the seat of her pants, then hid it behind her back. Chewbacca pretended he hadn't seen how her hand shook. "Never mind. Where's Han?"

 _I told him to go and sleep_ , he explained. _You should, too._

Leia looked at Chewbacca with an expression of gratitude so unguarded that he had to lower his eyes.

"You don't mind holding Ben?" she asked.

 _No. Sleep._ He tossed his head in the direction Han had gone.

"All right. I will. Thank you, Chewie." She touched his elbow gently and stood on tiptoe to kiss the back of Ben's head, then she scuffed off toward the crew quarters. "Call me when he wakes," she added just before rounding the corner and disappearing.

Chewbacca sat down again and laid Ben on his thighs, covering him with his swaddling blanket. He looked once more at the empty doorway, then down at the sleeping baby.

 _It's okay, pup. I'll teach you how to hold on. Your parents are just afraid of you falling._


	3. Feel the Black Reaching Out

_**A/N: You guys are lovely readers. Thanks for all the comments! Love, Tater & Brat**_

* * *

 **3\. Feel the Black Reaching Out**

Leia dreamed of dark.

Not cold, empty dark, but enveloping warmth. _Too_ warm, smotheringly so, but when she tried to disentangle herself from the blankets, they wrapped tighter around her. Like arms, embracing, with a strength that was impossible to resist, so she stopped struggling and relaxed into the welcome heat of the darkness, whispering into her ear like a lover. She sighed and lay as still as possible and listened to the soft seductions.

She couldn't make out the words. There were no words, just strong arms and steady breath… _in, out_ … _in, out…_ and the dark.

Even without words she felt it making promises. Promising her power…or to overpower her? The arms tightened around her in the thickening dark. No, not arms, serpent's coils. She couldn't breathe, though she could still hear the breath at her back… _in_ , _out_ … _in, out_.

Cold prickled down her spine. She renewed her struggle against the dark presence, against this dream she'd had before, but she wasn't strong enough. She'd never been strong enough, never would be. Could only watch helplessly, arms pinioned in that grip, as worlds shattered in one final explosion of light before the dark took its place, as the face she loved most in all the galaxy looked one last time at her in love before it too, fell into the eternal dark where no one could save her and she could save no one-

"Hey…Hey, _Leia_ …It's okay…You're just having a dream, sweetheart…Wake up..."

She opened her eyes, or tried to, but the dream wouldn't allow it, kept her lids glued shut with her own drying tears. Strong hands held her shoulders, pressing her down, and her sweat-soaked nightgown stuck to her skin. She reached up, fumbling blindly in the dark, fingertips brushed by warm breath and yielding human flesh instead of the impenetrable, inhuman mask-Vader's, she'd thought while having the dream, though now that seemed somehow wrong. The touch of her husband's skin frightened her, too. Mightn't it all be part of the dream, a further mind trick?

"Han…Ben…Where…?"

She was accustomed to waking in a tangle of limbs, but not her husband's. Ben had been a poor sleeper as a baby and hadn't grown out of it. He slept most peacefully between them, but he was tall for a four-year-old and sometimes pushed Han from the bed completely when his long limbs thrashed against the nightmares.

"Ben's fine." The whisper of Han's words and kiss on her forehead made her shiver… _You're trembling. I'm not trembling._ "I was sleeping in his room, and he came in to play holochess. Probably up early excited about his first day of school."

"So you thought you'd let the computer babysit?" Leia tried to sit up but Han pressed her back down.

"He didn't need me. You did. Leia. Look at me."

She did, and nearly wept at the sight of hazel eyes and stubble and shaggy hair and lean muscular arms in the pale grey light.

"Kiss me," she said as she tilted her head up, seeking his soft lips.

"Yes, princess," he replied, mouth pulling in his lopsided smile against hers.

Leia felt a stab of guilt at his obvious eagerness. Early morning trysts had been so few and far between since Ben's birth that she couldn't honestly remember the last time they'd had one. Another part of her felt guilty that their son was left to his own devices with only hologram game pieces for company, but Han was right. At the moment Ben was fine across the hall, and she was the one in need of comfort. Of reassurance that the terrible dream wasn't real; that this, being here in the dawn light, was; that she, they all, were safe beyond the reach of the dark.

When she deepened the kiss Han wove his fingers through the strands of the braid at her nape, loosening it. Leia trailed hers down from his chest to hook over the waistband of his underwear, and he shifted to tug them down over his hips as she hitched her nightgown up around her waist and guided him inside her. Despite how long it had been he tried to be delicate, but she wrapped herself around him, dug her heels into the small of his back, splayed her palms over his shoulders to press his weight down fully.

Letting go had never come easily to her, but now she let herself become lost in the movement of their bodies together, their voices murmuring words of love and making wordless sounds of pleasure. This always felt so right. She closed her eyes, remembering the first time they became lovers on Endor, fueled by the years of intimacy and affection that had grown between them and all they had overcome together. She arched against him as she reached her peak, and soon after he followed her over the edge.

They remained joined for several minutes, taking the time to kiss and caress that they hadn't before, until they caught their breath and their heartbeats returned to almost normal tempo.

Brushing his lips over her forehead one final time, Han at last slipped out of her, though he drew the covers up over them and kept a hand on her as he lay on his side, facing her, the tip of his thumb and pinkie spanning between the jut of her hip bones through her nightgown.

"Feel better?" he asked.

Leia restrained a shiver at the scuff of his thumb. The pillowcase rustled as she turned her head toward him. "If I say yes it'll go straight to your scruffy head, won't it?"

Han didn't disappoint, flashing his rakish grin. The golden flecks in his eyes glinted as they caught the light filtering through the thin curtains behind her.

"At the moment, sweetheart, everything's goin' straight in the other direction."

At her eyeroll, his deep chuckle rumbled, and she tucked herself against his chest, beneath his chin, so she could feel it through her as his hand trailed up and down her back beneath her nightgown. Warm and relaxed in his arms, Leia felt her eyelids growing heavy, her mind drifting into the nothingness found only in real peaceful security, when his voice stirred her.

"Been awhile since you had a nightmare that bad. Wanna tell me about it?"

Leia let out a long breath. No, she certainly did not. Why did he have to bring it up? She sat up, adjusted her nightgown, saw the shadows shift across the bed as a cloud or a cruiser passed over.

"Probably just because it's a big day," she said. She'd been too distracted to meditate properly last night before bed. "I still can't believe Ben's starting school…"

It was probably high time she got up and helped him get ready-though he was remarkably self-sufficient Months ago he'd begun to creep out of bed and see to his own breakfast. Just how he'd reached the bowls had not been clear. Han insisted he'd climbed, as kids did, but Leia had her doubts; climbing didn't account for that wiry little body having the strength to lift the milk container from the refrigeration unit.

"He's growing up," Han said.

Leia had to smile at the unmistakable pride in his voice-and at the continued stroke of his fingers at the small of her back as she turned to swing her legs over the edge of the bed.

"Maybe we'll have mornings like this more often," he continued. "Not with the dreams but. You know. The parts after that."

She looked back over her shoulder and lifted an eyebrow. "The parts after that?"

"Who knows? Maybe it'll lead to another one."

Ribbons of dark snaked into the edges of her vision, the nightmare presence returning. Through the long months of her pregnancy and Ben's infancy it watched her, stalked her, _tempted_ her. So many sleepless nights spent tossing and turning in this bed, pacing the floors of their apartment, resisting it, pleading with it to leave her alone, until finally it did.

But Ben was too young to learn how to close his mind.

She would resign herself to a lifetime of nightmares if it, whatever, _whoever_ it was, would leave him alone.

Han didn't know all that, of course. How could she explain it to him when she barely understood it herself? And she and Luke could be wrong.

"No need to get all serious on me." He kicked off the covers and sat up to retrieve his underwear from the tangle of bed linens."I was only kidding."

He wasn't, Leia knew that perfectly well, knew _Han_ perfectly well. She ached to tell him he didn't need to pretend. Instead she sat mutely as he shook out the crumpled underwear.

"Be counter-productive, wouldn't it, to have another kid when I finally got you to myself?"

She nodded, but he'd already turned away to get out of bed and tug his underwear on. The soles of his bare feet scuffed on the tile floor, and from her seat at the edge of the bed she watched the taut play of muscles across his back as he opened a drawer and shut it a little too hard after pulling out a pair of pants.

"Han…" Leia stood, took a step toward him, but met the edge of the bed. "It isn't that I don't _want_ another child…"

The only sound was the zip of his fly, the jangle of his belt as he buckled it. At last he turned around, looking at her with an expression of sad resignation. "I know."

For a moment they stared at each other, then Han shambled back to her, taking her by the shoulders before wrapping his arms fully around her.

"Maybe someday," she said.

"Maybe. Right now, why don't you hop in the 'fresher, while I start the caf and make sure Ben's dressed for school?"

Leia didn't argue. She wanted to, but sensed Han needed a moment with his boy. So she took a shower, stood beneath the hard hot spray, and fixed her mind on washing away the last vestiges of the dream like the sleep grime that coated her skin.

Muffled shouting from the room beyond reached her through the 'fresher wall. Telling herself it was only one of their games, she continued showering, but eventually bangs, as of slamming doors, underscored Han's voice. Leia shut off the water, calling out as her fingers hovered over the control of the drying unit, not turning it on.

"Han? Is everything all right?"

No answer.

Only Han yelling, "This ain't a game, kid! Hide and seek's over!"

Quickly Leia dried off and dressed, heart pounding as the banging continued. When she emerged from the **'** fresher, Han was in the bedroom; he'd put on a shirt and sat on the foot of his bed tugging on his boots.

"Don't panic," he began, getting up.

"Not the best way to keep me from panicking."

"I can't find Ben." Han didn't look at her as he picked up his leather holster from the bed and clasped it around his hips and thigh. "He's not here."

"What do you mean, he's not here?" Leia brushed past him toward bedroom door.

"I _mean_ …" His heavier footsteps stalked after her. "…he ain't anywhere in the apartment. I looked everywhere."

"Ben!" Leia called, stepping out into the hall. "Ben, where are you?"

She hurried down the short hallway to his room, where Han slept more than their son did. The holochess board was still on, not many pieces looking as though they'd moved at all. She checked under the bed, in the closet, even in the toy chest, bumping into Han who leaned against the doorframe when she went to exit.

"I told you, I already looked-"

"Damn it, Han, you can't have! He has to be here somewhere!"

He straightened up to full height, filling the opening, one hand braced against the frame. "I didn't say he vanished into thin air!"

"Then let me look for him!"

"I will, just…not here. He's probably with Chewie."

"Then why don't you call Chewie, while I double check the rest of the apartment?"

Leia ducked under his arm and ran through their quarters yelling for Ben, not because she thought he'd answer, but to cover Han's voice on the comm. He wasn't in the small study, or in any of the closets or cupboards, or under any furniture.

She covered her mouth, feeling sick, a wave of heat prickling over her face only to leave her cold. Han's raised voice drifted to her down the hall as a buzz in her ears, his words registering belatedly. _If he's not with you, have you got any idea where he might be?_

Her office, Leia thought. He spent a lot of time with her there-not quite as much as with Han and Chewie, but enough that it wouldn't be shocking for him to turn up there. She went to their residence communicator as Han was using his private one, and Threepio answered. "Good morning, Princess Leia, how may I be of service to you?"

"Ben isn't there, is he?"

"With me?" the droid asked. "Indeed, I am quite alone at the moment. Perhaps I am mistaken, but it was my understanding that Master Ben is set to begin school this morning?"

"Yes he is," Leia replied through her teeth. "Thank you, Threepio."

She heard his alarmed, "Has Master Ben gone missing?" before she closed the commlink.

"No, I fucking haven't checked the _Falcon_ ," Han ranted on in the other room. "Because I don't live on it anymore, fur brain, that's why. I live in a damned apartment like a respectable general with a wife and kid!"

A moment later he stomped through the lounge on the way to the front door. "We should check the _Falcon_."

He punched the keypad and the door slid open. How did Ben even know the access code? Halfway through the door he turned back to Leia.

"You comin'?"

"Of course I'm coming." She snapped out of her stupor and followed him out. "Seeing as I'm at least partially to blame for my son going missing."

"Okay, first of all Ben's not _missing,_ he's on the _Falcon_. Probably. Don't know why I didn't think to check there in the first place. And second-" He stepped around her, pivoting to face her. "What the hell do you mean you're to blame? What for? Taking fifteen minutes in four years for yourself? For _us_?"

For allowing a nightmare to frighten her into dropping her vigilance so that thing, that presence, could lure her baby out. She couldn't look up at her husband, meet those concerned, confused eyes and say that. Instead she inhaled deeply through her nose, exhaled again and spoke to him quietly.

"Perhaps we can save the conference for _after_ Ben is safely back with us?"

She saw Han's jaw work, eyes harden as their gaze drifted over her head, so the fact that he turned and walked on without comment was a testament to his self-control. Or at least of how his worry for Ben, despite his assertions to the contrary, mattered more to him than having the last word with her.

Their apartment wasn't far from the hangar where the _Falcon_ was housed, along with what remained of the Republic fleet. They practically ran, Han's hand clamped around her own, but it seemed to take too long to get there when every moment they weren't with Ben was another moment he might be with someone else.

A few people were milling around the vast bay, drinking caf and watching the news holos on datapads, but it was still early enough that most of the pilots and personnel who worked here had yet to arrive; even the astromechs hadn't powered on for the day. It would be so easy for a quiet, clever four-year-old to sneak through unnoticed.

But not his parents.

"Morning, General…and General," called a squeaky-voiced junior mechanic whose name Leia couldn't possibly remember under the circumstances; one of the war orphans. "Saw the little guy a while ago. Wouldn't say hi to me. He's a shy one."

Leia's stomach clenched as Han's grip tightened around her hand and he wheeled on the youth. Gaelen, she read on his badge. That's right.

"You saw Ben, and you didn't think it might be a good idea to call us?"

"I…" Gaelen cringed back, eyes darting between Han and Leia. "No, I…I just assumed you were around somewhere. Usually are."

"Well, you know what they say about assuming-"

"It's all right, Gaelen." Leia interrupted. This time it was she who tugged at Han to move along. "He was headed toward the _Falcon_?"

"I assu-I mean…I guess so? I'm real sorry, ma'am…"

His apology was swallowed up by their footfalls as they hurried on. At her first glimpse of the ship she tore her hand from Han's broke into a run all the way to the entry bay. Hurtling past her with his longer strides, Han punched the button.

As the doors groaned apart he pivoted back to her, running a hand across his unshaven jaw line. "If Ben had come on board, wouldn't someone have heard that?"

"He's here." Leia strode onto the boarding ramp.

"What, you got a Force feeling now?"

She tensed her jaw at his tone. In fact, she'd been having _Force feelings_ all morning, though she'd tried to ignore them.

"I have ears," she replied, stopping short so suddenly Han bumped into her from behind. She heard his intake of breath before the inevitable argument and held up a hand for silence.

Inside, the unmistakable clatter of feet on the metal gratings.

"Ben Solo!" Han barreled around her and headed down the curving corridor to the main hold, where Ben liked to play Dejarik. "We know you're in here, so don't even try to-"

"Don't shout at him!" she said through clenched teeth as she hurried behind, reaching out to catch his arm. "We don't want him to think we're angry-"

"Why the hell not? I _am_ angry! He can't just run off like that."

Han was right, of course...though he couldn't know that Ben might be running from something his father couldn't see. In any case, this certainly wasn't the first tantrum Ben had ever thrown. Shouting never helped; quite the contrary.

"Your father and I aren't angry at you, Ben," she said, stepping up into the hold. "We're just worried. We couldn't find you at home…"

Her searching eyes didn't find him here, either, not at the holotable or the tech station. Once again Han stepped around her, crossing the space in a couple of long strides to check the galley and bunks.

"You don't want to be late for your first day of school," she said.

"I'm not going to school!" Ben's shout reached them from the corridor they'd just come through, punctuated by booming stomps on the floor panels. Maybe he'd been hiding in one of the secret compartments for illicit goods?

"Ain't up to you, kid!" Han stood over Leia in the doorway. "Now you better march your butt to the hold before I count to three, or-"

"No!" More clattering, receding from them.

"He's headed for the cockpit."

Han gave Leia a little nudge. She did, with him right at her heels. The blood pounded in her ears, somehow seeming out of time with her pulse…or maybe that was the conflicting rhythm of her shoes on the floor, Han's boots, and Ben's small quick steps ahead, running away from them.

As they came through the bulkhead door, the _Falcon_ lurched with the sudden rumble of the engines firing up. Leia pitched forward onto her palms and knees on the grating.

"Did you teach him to turn this thing on?" She scowled as Han pivoted back to gave her a hand up..

"Evidently."

They stumbled through the narrow corridor to the cockpit, the open door revealing him leaning against the console, facing them. The dark almond-shaped eyes rounded in his pale face at the sight of her.

"Ben-don't touch anything else!"

He threw out a hand, and Leia stopped in her tracks, as if her limbs had been caught by a snare. Setting her will against it, she pushed forward again, breaking the invisible bonds, but just as she reached the door it slammed shut in her face.

Before she could pull herself out of the stupor of what he had done, and how, and grab the latch, the locking mechanism turned over with a _thunk_.

"Did he just lock the damn door?" Han asked, coming up alongside her. He pounded on the door. "Open up, kid!"

"Ben?" Leia called, gently, leaning her head against cold durasteel, "Are you all right in there?"

"He's _four_ ," Han grumbled, "and he's going through the pre-flight checklist. No, he damn well is _not_ all right in there."

He hadn't seen their son's face when he used the Force to shut the door. True, he'd thrown out his arm as if that had clearly been his intent, but before the door cut off her view, Leia glimpsed Ben's expression of surprise. No, not even that. He'd looked…scared. Of what?

Or of _whom_?

"Are you all right?" she repeated.

"I'm just fine in here!" Ben's muffled voice reached her. Of course she couldn't say for sure through the door, but the tone didn't match the look she'd seen, or thought she'd seen, a moment before. "How are you?"

She looked back at Han. "Sometimes that child has entirely too much of his father in him."

Under normal circumstances, that would have made him smirk, but now he only glowered and rattled the door handle.

"Unlock the door!"

A howl from behind signified Chewbacca's arrival.

"About time you showed up," Han said. "And yeah, manual override's a great idea."

Chewie started to go, but Leia said, "Wait."

He chuffed back at her in question, looked to Han who echoed, "Wait? _Why_?"

Leia didn't know why. She needed more time to process all of this herself, so she could only imagine how confused Ben must be, how frightened.

"He needs our help," she said.

"Then let's help him open the door," Han drawled.

"Just. _Wait_ ," Leia gritted out through clenched teeth. "Give him a minute to come out on his own. Maybe he'll talk about what's wrong."

Han goggled at her as he had when she'd proposed escape via trash compactor. " _Talk about what's wrong?_ He's _four_ , he doesn't wanna go to school, so he's throwing a fit. No discussion necessary."

At a woof from Chewie, he snapped, "Oh really? You're on _her_ side?"

"I know you don't want to go to school," Leia repeated Han's words, an idea coming to her, along with a calm. She'd felt this way before, in the midst of conflicts with the officers, when suddenly a strategy would come to her and her cool negotiation skills quelled her internal crisis-as well as the external one. "Maybe you had another one of your dreams? I did, too. You're probably feeling a little frightened, and that's perfectly understandable. We can talk about why, and how not to be, if you'll just please unlock the door. I won't make you go to school."

Han opened his mouth, but she shushed him with a rough hand gesture.

A muffled sob came from the cockpit. "It won't. I'm trying to unlock the door, but it won't!"

"What do you mean, _it won't_?" Han said. "The same button that locked it, just push it again."

"I CAN'T, I CAN'T, I CAN'T DO IT. IT'S NOT WORKING."

He was trying to use the Force, but Leia couldn't say so. The words lodged in her throat.

Chewie clapped his hands over his ears as a wail emitted from the cockpit, along with the unmistakable clamor of metal being stomped and struck.

"Get your hairy ass to the power and hit those manual overrides before he tears my ship apart!" Han bellowed.

"What about before he hurts himself?" Leia fired back.

Her voice echoed in the corridor. It took a moment for her to register that this meant the cockpit had gone silent. The alarm had turned off. Ben's tantrum had stopped. She could have sworn she heard his ragged breathing…in, out…but that was absurd.

"Ben?" Han called, sounding ragged, out of breath himself. "Think maybe you could give unlocking that door another try, buddy?"

He didn't reply, but a moment later, the sound of the locking mechanism unlatching reached their ears, followed by the whoosh of the door sliding open. There stood Ben, so near the doorway that she didn't know whether he'd used the Force or done it manually. His eyes were red and his pale face blotchy with dried tears; his thick dark hair stood every which way as if he'd tried to tear it from his scalp. But he was eerily calm and quiet in contrast as he blinked up at them. Perhaps that meant he _had_ used the Force.

Leia felt like she might cry. Her hand shook as she reached out to smooth his hair back into place, then pulled him against her, hugging him tightly against her stomach as his thin arms went around her.

"Promise me you'll _never_ run off like that again," she half-sobbed.

He wagged his head against her, presumably in a nod, then tilted his face up to look at her. "What can I do today since I'm not going to school?"

Leia couldn't meet Han's eye, feeling the weight of his disapproval that she'd let Ben win, and the of the proof, finally, that the Force was strong in their son. Why else would that dark presence hunt him in his dreams?

"You can go to work with your mother," he muttered, and stalked into the cockpit to assess the damage.


	4. Hear Its Call

**4\. Hear Its Call**

 _She's still a wreck,_ Han had said with a clap on Luke's shoulder when they boarded the _Millenium Falcon_ , _but it's just like old times, right?_

And it was- _almost_ , thought Luke. The tech station in the hold where he was tracking the flight to Yavin 4 hadn't been upgraded, though the _Falcon_ was a full-fledged part of the New Republic's fleet, and even the stool still squeaked when it swiveled. Same holotable in the corner, same curved padded seat where Chewbacca contemplated his pieces on the Dejarik board. The galley was new-well, _ish_ , in comparison to the rest of the ship; Han had put it in around the time as he married Leia, which had been met with arched eyebrows and the remark: "Hope you're not expecting your wife to cook."

Chewie's present Dejarik opponent had come along not long after the galley. Although at some angles Luke thought he was looking at Han's long face and crooked chin, in others all he could see were Leia's coloring and serious eyes. But they were both in the cockpit, and the eight year-old player was their son.

And the bearded man dressed in Jedi robes was not Ben Solo's namesake, but Uncle Luke.

Luke had experienced many shifts in perspective during his lifetime, most of the drastic ones occurring in the past decade as the truth of his lineage revealed itself. Accepting change was a part of flowing with the Force, and generally he managed as if he were floating along on a river current. Sometimes, however, the course didn't run smooth. He felt the ripples, the rocky places that reminded him that his destiny carried him further away from those he loved for longer than he would like. Sadness, even regret, threatened at times to pull him under. Now was one of those times, when he was confronted with the plain truth of how much he missed Leia and Han, how much their son had grown,, how little he knew Ben.

Yet as he watched his nephew now, Luke had a sense that he _did_ know him, better than he ought for their lack of time together. Those dark eyes were Leia's, but the expression in them was one Luke had seen gazing back at him from his own face. The look of longing for _more_ , of being so sure he was destined for something greater.

Of being pulled apart.

He closed his eyes and focused on releasing the negative feelings.

From seemingly far away, Chewie barked. Luke kept his eyes closed, not allowing the intrusion to disturb his inner silence.

Much closer by, Ben's protest reached his ears. "I am _not_ cheating!"

Luke's eyes snapped open on the image of his nephew standing up on the bench, which gave Ben the advantage of height as he glowered across the Dejarik board at his opponent. As if he intended to intimidate the seven and a half-foot tall Wookiee, and the thought never occurred to him that for most people-scrappy eight year-olds especially-it was the other way around. Which seemed about right, for Han's son.

And Leia's, for that matter.

Chewbacca howled back.

"That's not an official rule," Ben argued, spots of red bleeding into his pale cheeks. "And anyway I _didn't_ read your mind."

Luke sat up straighter in his seat as his nephew went on:

" _You_ should try not to be so obvious about what your next move's going to be, you big dumb hairball!"

Rather than be insulted at the name-calling, Chewie chortled, looking past the boy to chuff to Luke. No, the apple didn't fall far. Luke chuckled quietly into his hand, rubbing his beard. The question was, which tree did it fall from?

"STOP LAUGHING AT ME! IT'S NOT FUNNY!" Ben lunged, beating his fists on the holotable.

The Dejarik pieces flickered, then disappeared.

Chewbacca whined, but Luke didn't catch his words. He was too intent on the fact that the power switch for the holotable was across from where Ben's hands had landed.

For a moment, the only sound in the hold other than the rumble of the _Falcon_ 's engines and her incessant creaks and groans was the puff of Ben's breaths out, the long hisses of him drawing them in again. Luke watched the uneven rise and fall of his chest beneath his loose shirt and vest as he remained leaning over the table, thick black hair falling over his forehead. Chewbacca also stared, until he slid along the curving lounge seat and unfolded his long, shaggy body to full height. The boy didn't acknowledge his movement until the Wookiee sidled around the holotable. Even then, Ben remained perfectly still except for an upward flick of his eyes.

"Where are you going?"

Luke's Shyriiwook was rusty, but he thought Chewie replied, _Up front. To see if your father needs me._

Ben snapped up straight, wheeling around on the seat. "You can't quit! Come back here, Chewbacca, and finish our game!"

Chewbacca stopped. Turned back to the little boy, eyes fixed on him. Was this a child's tantrum, or an attempt, conscious or not, to use the Force to dominate and control?

Whimpering softly, Chewie did lumber back to Ben, reaching out to ruffle his hair. Ben flinched back, eyes narrowing at the affectionate gesture which no doubt made him feel he wasn't being taken seriously.

 _Just a break, pup._ The hairy arm fell to Chewbacca's side. _We'll finish our game later_.

"Yeah. Sure." Ben waved his hand in a dismissive gesture Luke had seen countless times from Han before he turned away, shoulders hunched and arms akimbo. "You know where to find me when you're finished sulking."

When Chewbacca had disappeared disappeared around the bend in the corridor, Ben let out a frustrated sound and slid down the back of the seat, folding his wiry frame into a painful looking angle with his knees pressed to his chest while he rested his feet on the edge of the table. His neck also craned uncomfortably as his head lolled against the cushion, fingers raking through his hair to tug at it by the roots.

He looked so absorbed in his own mind that Luke wondered if Ben had forgotten he was even there, playing witness to the debacle. If so, all the better for the experiment he wanted to try.

 _Do you read people's minds?_

" _No_ ," Ben answered the silent question out loud. "I told Chewie I didn't."

The experiment had worked, then, but Luke tried his nephew again.

 _Do you ever think people have spoken to you, but really you only heard their thoughts?_

Somehow, Ben contorted his limbs to clamber off the seat, approaching Luke with a face so lit up that he realized how infrequently he'd seen Ben smile-and not just because visits were few and far between. Last time, the two front teeth had been missing, while now his permanent ones crookedly filled the gap.

"Is it a Jedi power?" Ben didn't wait for an answer. "Can you do it? Tell me what I'm thinking."

"All right."

To Luke's surprise, he met slight resistance as his mind reached out to his nephew's through the Force, although whether Ben meant to try and block him out or it was simply a instinctual defense, he couldn't say. Once he was in, he found the thought easily enough, and a he raised his eyebrows.

"I'm afraid of what your mother would do to me if I repeated that. Where did you learn that word?"

The boy's mouth gaped briefly with astonishment, then cocked into a grin. "From Dad."

Why had Luke even asked?

"I know it in Shyriiwook, too!"

Before his nephew could demonstrate his no doubt considerable lexicon of multilingual swear words, Luke asked, "How did it feel when I did that?"

Ben's eyes rolled upward in thought. "Like…like my brain was a data screen, and you were swiping around opening and closing files."

An astute description for an eight year-old. Most of Luke's students wouldn't have thought to phrase it in those terms.

"My mom says you're a teacher," Ben said. "Is that what you teach at your school? Can you teach me to do it?"

"You already know how to do it. I can teach you _not_ to."

The eagerness drained from Ben's face, leaving him pale, eyes seeming to darken. He stepped back from Luke, the sharp lines of his thin features angling inward, protective. As though he feared something would be taken from him.

"Why?"

Luke considered his answer. There were a number of things he could say, but in light of the fact that Leia apparently had not told her young son in so many words that his uncle's school trained children in the ways of the Force, he opted for a vague approach.

"It's not very polite to read people's minds. Or to control them."

"I don't _mean_ to. It just happens. And people barely ever do what I want them to." His eyes glinted as he cut them sideways toward the cockpit. "If they did, I wouldn't have to go to school."

"Don't you like school?"

Ben wagged his head slowly. "No."

A normal enough answer for a boy this age; Luke supposed _he_ wouldn't have answered any differently at eight. Nevertheless he asked, "Why not?"

Hands balled at his sides, Ben twitched his shoulders in a shrug. "Everyone just talks about you and Mom and Dad all the time."

Luke rubbed his hand across his beard to mask his slight smile, not wanting to irk the boy.

"I suppose people probably do have a few stories to tell about General Solo and General Organa. They're great heroes of the war."

He felt that data screen file opening as Ben described before he thought to put up a mental block.

"Like the Damerons?" Ben said.

"Shara and Kes did a lot for the Rebellion, yes."

It was Kes' funeral that took them to Yavin now. Two years ago, Shara came out of retirement to lead a scouting expedition near the unknown regions, where they'd had rumors of Imperial sympathizers re-arming. After her death on the mission, Kes resumed full-time duty, volunteering for increasingly more dangerous assignments. As if he'd had a death wish, even though their son Poe depended on him. Luke hadn't seen either of the Damerons since the end of the war, when Shara partnered with him to retrieve the Force-tree splinters. She'd planted one in the rich jungle earth of Yavin.

For the space of a heartbeat Ben's face blurred, but after he released the sadness and felt sure he could speak without his voice trembling, Luke said, "Many of your schoolmates lost parents in the war, didn't they?"

The military base on Mirrin Prime where Leia's family lived seemed to be populated by as many refugees-orphans of former Rebels as well as displaced persons waiting to be relocated throughout the galaxy-as it was military personnel. Poe Dameron would likely be one of them now-and no doubt, because of his parents' prestige as pilots, would be groomed for the X-wing program.

"Mostly older ones." Another shrug, but then Ben lifted serious eyes to meet Luke's. "Is there still a war?"

"What makes you say that?"

"The Damerons died in combat."

Luke rose from the stool, as careful not to step on the hem of his robes as he was not to leave even a crack of his mind open to his nephew's curiosity. Obviously Ben had picked up bits and pieces from his parents, whether it was meant for his ears or not.

At length he replied, "The Empire's reach was vast, and still has supporters out there."

Luke knelt to put himself at eye level with the boy, laying one hand on his shoulder. "You worry you could lose your parents, too."

"I didn't say that!" Ben shrank back from him.

As his hand fell to his side, Luke gave him a slight smile. "I didn't have to read your mind, Ben."

He'd simply followed the child's line of thought. Felt the quaver of fear in the Force. More than anything he wished he could honestly tell Ben that he needn't worry about his parents, but Luke knew Han and Leia-Leia especially-would always be in the thick of it.

"It's natural to fear loss," he said. "The important thing is not to let the fear overtake you. Fear is the path to the Dark Side. It leads to anger. Anger leads hate, and hate to suffering."

Little had he known that when Master Yoda had spoken those words to him, he described Anakin Skywalker's journey.

"I lost my mother when I was born. My father, before." Unlike the war orphans, Luke had gotten him back, if only at the end.

"I know." Ben plopped down on the stool Luke had vacated, swiveling to look at the nav screens. Apparently he'd reached his conversation limit. "It's too bad the Organas didn't adopt you and my mom. Then you could've been Prince of Alderaan. Can you be a prince and a Jedi?"

"I don't think so."

"Maybe that's why Mom goes by General Organa. You can only be one thing at a time. Doesn't seem fair, though."

Luke allowed himself a quiet chuckle as he leaned back against the holotable to watch Ben play with the computer-nothing that would interfere with the actual operation of the _Falcon_ , of course. He stretched out a long, skinny arm to reach a control panel in the corner, then went suddenly still as a thought occurred.

"Maybe it's because there isn't an Alderaan anymore to be princess of." Still leaning over the tech station, Ben turned his head to peer over his shoulder, giving his head an ineffective toss to get the hair out of his eyes. "I see it blow up, you know. In my dreams."

Luke did _not_ know. He knew there had been dreams because Leia came to him to learn meditation techniques to help her combat them, and he knew Ben had them as a toddler, too, though Han insisted it was night terrors, and childrearing holos he'd read, and medical droids, said they were a normal part of non-Force-sensitive childhoods.

"What do you see?" Luke asked.

"A flash of red. And then I'm holding it in my hands."

In nine years, Luke had not sensed the Dark anywhere so near as it was now. It stared at him through Ben's eyes, hit him with an electric shock that threatened to knock him off his feet.

The moment of connection was broken when the boy's gaze flicked past Luke, who registered belatedly the sound of voices approaching down the corner.

"You guys forget to invite us to the party?" asked Han as Luke turned to see him sauntering through the doorway into the hold, an arm slung around Leia's shoulders.

"I'd _hoped_ Uncle Luke would oversee homework," she said.

Ben followed her gaze to a canvas knapsack in the corner seat at the holotable. When he looked back up, sheepish, he found her studying him with a furrowed brow.

"But Mo-om, how can I do _home_ work if I'm not at _home_?" The grin that slanted across his face as he swiveled on the stool mirrored his father's.

"Kid's got a point, you know."

Marriage clearly hadn't made Han tire of pushing Leia's buttons-or her of pushing his right back.

"I would've expected you to say the _Falcon_ is like home."

Han's smirk fell-briefly. "Homework on the _Falcon_ is _flyin'_. You wanna come up front, buddy? Show Uncle Luke what you can do?"

Ben launched off the stool, only to stop short as a thought occurred to him. He looked down at the floor, lips pursed and chin clenched.

"I think Chewie's mad at me. I called him a hairball."

That wasn't exactly what had upset Chewbacca, who'd endured worse insults from Han and Leia, as indicated by the look they exchanged while their son wasn't looking.

"Think maybe you should apologize?" Leia suggested.

Ben remained intent of the toe of his boot kicking at the metal grating on the floor, then he gave a slow nod. When he looked up again, it was at Luke. "Then can you watch me fly the Falcon?"

"In a bit. You run along. I've barely had a chance to talk to your mom."

Disappointment pulled at Ben's features, giving way to a shout. Not a tantrum this time, though-just a protest as Han slung him upside-down over one shoulder.

"Put me down!" The boy's fists pummeled his father's back even as his stomach, bared by his shirt riding up, hitched in with giggles, revealing the outline of his ribcage.

"Aren't you light freight?" Han said. "Because we're on a light freighter."

He started to carry Ben son off, when Luke called after him.

"Actually, Han, I was just thinking about how long it's been since I had caf the way you make it."

Leia made a derisive sound. "You mean like the sludge at the bottom of that Imperial trash compactor?"

"With the monster that almost ate you all?" Ben asked, giving up his struggle and craning his head backward.

"People who flat-out refuse to cook shouldn't throw stones at the person making the caf," Han responded to his wife with the grumpiness of a short-order cook. His grin returned as he lowered Ben to the floor by his ankles, held him in a handstand position for a moment before letting go. Ben only balanced for a second or two before his gangly legs waved like cordgrass in the wind and he flopped over. "Tell the hairball I'll be back up in a minute," Han said as Ben scrambled to his feet.

"Han!" Leia scolded.

Ben hesitated in the doorway, eyes locked on Luke, a slight furrow between his brows as he projected a thought through the Force. _Please don't tell Mom about the bad word you read in my mind._ In response, Luke smiled slightly. He didn't agree, because he knew what his nephew was really asking was for him not to tell his parents about their private conversation, and it would be lying to say he wouldn't. Clearly no one was communicating in this family, to the detriment of the child.

When he retreated, Luke and Leia sat at the holotable while Han got the caf going.

"Ben tells me he doesn't like school," Luke said as Leia pushed Ben's backpack out of the way.

"Does any kid?" Han replied, predictably.

Leia responded in kind: "I did."

"No offense, sweetheart, but that's why you weren't one of the cool kids."

"There weren't any cool kids. Just me and my private tutor."

"That'd be sad, if it weren't a royal privilege."

Luke took advantage of Leia's momentarily closed eyes as she shook her head to grin in amusement at the exchange. Then again, she probably sensed it. Just like old times, indeed.

"Anyway," she said, turning to look over the back of the seat at her husband as he took the durasteel Spiran caf pot off the heat implement and poured up the drink into mugs, "you talk about disinterest in school as though you weren't a good enough student to qualify for the Academy when push came to shove. Which is why I'm surprised Ben isn't doing well," she concluded, facing Luke again.

"Will you lay off him?" Han said, sloshing a little caf onto the floor as he carried three mugs to the table. "He's just a late bloomer is all."

"What do his teachers say?" Luke asked.

"That he always seems to know all the answers in class, but he performs very poorly on written exams. They wanted to test him for dyslexia or other learning disabilities-"

"He _ain't_ dyslexic." Han sat down heavily in the space next to Leia. "Reads and writes just fine."

"Reads adventure stories and comic holos when he should be reading for school, you mean. He has his father's work ethic."

Affronted, Han leaned away from his wife.

"I don't think it's that," Luke said.

" _Thank_ you." Han looked down at Leia with an expression of smug justification as he stretched his arm along the back of the seat behind her and swigged his caf.

"What _do_ you think it is, Luke?" she asked.

He took a moment to gather his thoughts, inhaling the slightly scorched aroma that wafted up from the swirling steam of the caf.

"It's my belief that Ben knows all the answers in class because he's reading his teachers' minds."

At this, Leia pinched her lips together, pressed the pads of her fingertips against her mug.

"Come on, Luke, he's a little kid," Han said. "He hasn't been to Jedi school, no one's taught him to do that."

"When you're as strong in the Force as I sense Ben is, you don't have to be taught to read minds. He needs to be taught _not_ to."

"And I suppose you think you're the man for the job. Sorry, but no way am I shipping my kid off across the fucking galaxy when he's _eight_."

"Han, please." Leia found her voice at last, soft and lacking her usual certainty. "For heaven's sake just _listen_."

As they looked at each other, Luke understood their silent communication. Neither of them had known their real parents-or in Han's case, didn't remember them-and that single thing had most informed their reluctance all these years to send Ben with Luke. He'd never pressed the issue; he of all people would never want to deny any child the love of a mother and father. Separating families was always the most difficult part for him in bringing the Force-sensitive children he found to train. The depth of Han's love for his son had always been an intense ripple in the Force from the moment Luke learned of the pregnancy.

And of course there was the fear Ben just admitted about losing his parents.

"Okay." Han's throat bobbed as he swallowed. He lowered his arm to slip around Leia's shoulders as she leaned into the crook. Not for the first time, Luke marveled at how perfectly they seemed to fit together, despite their differences that indicated the contrary. "We're listening."

"I'm the one who needs to listen a little more before I advise anything," Luke replied. "Have either of you ever felt Ben in your head?"

"No," Han answered without hesitation, at the same time as Leia said, "I have."

He blinked at her, but she kept her gaze on Luke as she went on, "I assumed it was because I was projecting my thoughts to him. Could that be why he's always had these dreams? Is his mind reaching out to mine?"

"It's reaching out to someone. I'm beginning to doubt it's you."

"What the hell are you saying?" Han asked, the edge returning to his voice.

Although his view of the Force had evolved considerably since he'd declared the Jedi order a _hokey religion_ , Luke didn't have to reach far to sense his fear. He would have to handle him as carefully as he had his nephew.

"I sense the pull of the Dark in Ben."

Han shook his head emphatically, a grin of denial trying to pull at his lips, but not quite succeeding. "He's a good kid."

"No one is saying he isn't," Leia said, "but even you must see-"

" _Even_ me?" Han withdrew his arm from around her.

"Ben isn't like other children. He doesn't make friends easily. He has a horrible temper."

"That's not a family trait or anything..."

Eyes flashing, Leia's mouth opened in retort. Han twitched his eyebrows. She glanced away, and with a sip of caf swallowed her urge to lash back at him and thus prove his point.

After a moment, she met Luke's eye again and said, "We've had disciplinary reports from the school regarding violent outbursts when Ben is frustrated. Destruction of property. His classmates are afraid of him. So are a few of the teachers. They've said if it continues he won't be allowed to continue attending."

"It won't continue," Han said, "I'm handling it."

"By taking him out to roughhouse and shoot blasters?"

"I thought you agreed with me that he needs an outlet for his excessive male energy?"

"I did, but…"

Leia let the thought trail off. She looked down at her hands, which lay on the holotable balled into fists.

"I never said, but when Ben was four, he Force stunned me."

Han looked as though _he_ had been Force stunned. For Luke, the surprising part was that Leia had never mentioned it.

"Do you remember the day he started school, when he sneaked out of the apartment and we found him here?"

Han raked a hand through his hair, shuddered out a breath. "We chased him through the whole damn ship, and he used the Force to lock us out of the cockpit. Is that what you're talking about?" He glanced sideways at Luke. "We were never sure he meant to do that."

"Before that, he put a hold on me," Leia said. "Not a very strong one. I fought through it. But he did it, nevertheless. I believe it was intentional. Or he _hoped_ it would work."

For a moment Han looked down at her fisted hands, too, then covered them both with his own.

"So let's say channeling his energy's _not_ helping," he said. "Hypothetically speaking."

Luke nodded, encouraging Han to continue.

"Maybe Ben does need to learn that meditation stuff to calm down and not read minds. Can't you just teach him some exercises, like you taught Leia? She got a handle on things without full Jedi training."

Luke thought of how Ben reacted to that suggestion. Why shouldn't he read minds? Han was open now, which was progress. But how to keep him from closing off again in fear? _Like father, like son_. Destroying the Death Stars might have been easier task.

"I can teach him some exercises, yes."

"I don't have the Force, but I'm sensing a _but_ here."

"That may not be enough. Ben's mind is open to so much that it's chaos. He's desperate for order to make sense of it all."

"I'm starting to understand how he feels," Han mumbled, releasing Leia's hands. She lowered one beneath the table, and Luke imagined her giving her husband's thigh a reassuring squeeze. Or perhaps she wanted to maintain contact to reassure herself.

How he wished this could be different for them.

"I give you my word," he said, "if Ben comes to train with me, I won't take him from you."

But if they did not let him train, something else surely would.

For good.

Across the table, Leia held his gaze with her own, the connection between them opening up so that the _something else_ began to take form, the dark presence of her shared nightmares with Ben slithering into his mind. Luke felt her answer, the immediate _yes_. She would be prepared to send Ben with him right now, if he were to suggest it. Han, however, remained dubious.

"Would you like me to show you the potential I see in Ben?" Luke asked.

"Knock yourself out, Jedi Master."

There was only peace, not a feeling of being disrespected.

"I'm going to summon him through the Force."

Luke looked toward the cockpit, and the other two followed suit.

A moment later, Ben's audible reply drifted back to them: "Coming..."

"That doesn't prove anything." Han twisted back to face Luke as Ben clattered through the ship, making more noise than seemed possible for such a beanpole of a boy. "You coulda used the Force to summon me, and I'm about as sensitive as duracrete."

Leia snorted. "Please. I've never met anyone more sensitive than you."

The inevitable spluttered protests of offense, which would have proved her right, were prevented by Ben stumbling into the hold, Chewbacca chuffing behind him to be careful. Obviously, he'd accepted Ben's apology.

"Uncle Luke, are you ready to see me fly?"

"First, I want to show your parents what else you can make fly," Luke replied. "Does your father still keep a bin of spare nuts and bolts?"

Ben stepped toward the shelves that lined one wall, dark head tilting back as he craned his neck to look up at it the row of small white cases.

"Will you get it down and bring it here?" Luke asked.

To his surprise, Ben hesitated, darting a furtive glance at his parents. At Leia's nod of encouragement, he turned back to the shelf, the tip of his tongue poking out the corner of his lips as he concentrated on the box. It began to wiggle, its contents rattling, then going still Ben levitated it off the shelf and across the hold to alight on the holotable.

For a moment, no one said anything as he glanced back and forth between his parents, searching for their approval, but they were intent on the box, as if they couldn't believe it was a tangible object and not a hologram.

"You demonstrated great control, Ben," Luke said. "Obviously that wasn't your first time moving an object with the Force."

Han unfolded his lanky frame from the seat, hands going to his hips as he approached Ben. "How long _have_ you been able to do that, son?"

Although a moment ago Ben had looked almost desperate for their praise, Luke sensed a shift in his emotions, an annoyance, almost that they were so easily impressed. "Dad." He pushed his head out of his eyes. I've been getting milk out of the 'fridge since I was _four_."

"I knew it," Leia murmured.

A pelting sound, like the sudden onset of a hailstorm, jolted their attention from Ben to the table, where the box upended, scattering hundreds of nuts and bolts across the surface and bouncing off the grating into the cargo area below the main hold.

When the last metallic _ping_ faded, leaving them once more in silence, Han broke it again, "At least it wasn't milk."

He ruffled Ben's hair, but he shrugged away. "I didn't do that!"

"It was me," said Luke. "Would you mind helping me pick them up?"

Ben's instinctive reaction was to scowl-why should _he_ have to pick up Uncle Luke's mess-then understanding bloomed that this was part of the demonstration. Once again the pink bit of tongue appeared as the boy focused, more intently this time as he manipulated the Force to lift multiple objects at once, instead of only one. His parents and Chewbacca, in contrast, didn't know where to look as dozens of nuts and bolts rose into the air. Even Luke couldn't conceal an expression of wide-eyed, open-mouthed surprise that Ben had managed to simultaneously levitate so many miniscule pieces as one. Not only levitate, but he'd begun to stack them-and _sort them_ -into two columns which swayed in the air and twined together, serpentine, until they formed a helix.

"I'm doing it!" Ben cried. "Look!"

With his outburst the helix started to lose some of its shape, but Ben's forehead furrowed as he tried to regain control.

"I'm looking, kid," Han said. He glanced at Luke. "This is…not what I expected."

"Your dad's just not used to his things being organized," Leia said.

Ben's laugh rang out. The exercise ended in another shower of nuts and bolts. His grin fell along with them, then returned as he darted shining eyes up to Luke. "Should I try again?"

"That's enough for today, Ben. Next time, we'll work on not letting your emotions interfere with your control."

"Especially not the emotions that are at your old man's expense, huh?" Han joked. Luke did not miss the significance of his not having denied there would be a _next time._

Leia's hand came to rest on the canvas backpack, and her voice touched Luke's mind. _I've never seen Ben look so happy or relaxed since he started school._

Aloud, she said, "For now, how about you show Uncle Luke what you've learned from the best pilot in the galaxy."

* * *

 _ **A/N: You've been getting daily updates, but the rest of the chapters, 5-7, will be posted on Wednesdays and Sundays. Thank you all so much for all your lovely comments. It's a joy sharing this fic with other Star Wars fans.**_


	5. The Last Place I Could Stand

**5\. The Last Place I Could Stand**

The _Falcon_ hovered and wobbled. Han tried to keep his hands idle in his lap, resisting the urge to reach for the controls even though for one seat-gripping moment he feared that Poe was about to drill the cockpit through the tall grasses into the rocky soil beneath; but the kid steadied her and settled her down like a fancy dinner plate onto a linen tablecloth. He panted for a few seconds, then powered down the ship as Han had taught him.

Poe swiveled in his seat toward his copilot and gestured like a magician toward the controls he'd just masterfully manipulated. "Ehhh?" he said in the tone Han had used many a time after a narrow escape.

Han tried not to look as shaken—or as impressed—as he felt. He took a few steadying breaths in and out of his nose before gave a curt nod. "Not bad, kid."

Poe was Shara's boy, all right, and he'd be okay, Han decided then and there. If he could fly the _Falcon_ , he could fly anything.

"Come on," he said as he slid out of the copilot's chair. "Let's go get Ben."

They descended the boarding ramp together and fought their way through the tall purple grass, lifting their fists to chest level to avoid the thousands of tiny cuts they would get from the sharp edges. It wasn't as bad as the razor grass Han had learned the hard way to avoid on Corellia, but the blades still stung like crazy and then itched for hours afterwards. Rakata Prime's closest moon was terraformed, so why'd somebody think it was a good idea to let that kind of grass grow here? He'd have to ask Luke what the hell this stuff was called. The sky, as always, was shrouded in bright white clouds, which made him squint and yet still hid the sun. It was depressing.

As they reached the edge of the purple field and stepped onto a plain where the ground cover grew short and curly, he saw in the near distance Luke standing to one side of a group of kids going through their "forms," as he called them, on a stone dais. It was a slow, meditative practice of moving energy between your hands, Ben had told Han six months ago, the last time he and Leia saw him. Even after two years of training, these pre-combat forms weren't Ben's favorite; he didn't like trying to still his thoughts to let his body become calm enough to control a small ball of Force energy. Han knew enough about all this mystical stuff by now to recognize that the ten-year-old's energy was broad and frenetic, not small and contained—at least for now. That might change when he grew up. But he'd learn, Luke had insisted more than once. Han wondered about that. He thought Ben had too much of _him_ in him to be in one place for long.

Han watched the children turn to face the opposite direction and continue their painstakingly slow motions. It was almost uncomfortable to watch. After all, they were just kids who needed to be running around and acting stupid, these so-called _younglings_. Han scoffed inwardly. Did the Jedi have a term for everything? He couldn't bring himself to refer to Ben as a Padawan. That just sounded ridiculous.

Some of the kids' Force spheres had colors, which he supposed must make it easier to see what they were actually doing. He scanned the group, but from this distance he couldn't pick out Ben. He moved forward, Poe trotting to keep up with his long strides, and saw a dozen different shades of pastel colors…but one Force sphere shone a vibrant red, shooting sparks like miniature solar flares.

 _Ben_.

How had he gotten so tall in six months? Even at ten, his skinny body towered over many of the other kids now, some of whom were older than him by a couple of years. Han glanced down at Poe, whose muscular, compact body was short for twelve, and whose smartass expression sometimes looked so like Leia's—and Ben's—that it made him ache all over again for his own son to be home. Having Poe live with them for the past couple of years had been good, but it wasn't-could never be-the same as having his own son home. When Han was home, and not doing supply runs that occasionally took him farther from Mirrin Prime than was strictly necessary. Still, it had helped dampen the pain both for Poe, who'd just lost his dad, and Han and Leia, who'd allowed Luke to carry their son off for Jedi training. And of course Leia had always been good at keeping busy. Sometimes he swore she didn't even know when he was gone.

Returning his attention to Ben, Han noticed he seemed to be having trouble containing the energy sphere. He lost pace with the rest of the group and tried to catch up, but the orb grew larger. A flare reached out and slapped at the girl next to him, distracting her. Another spark flew over Ben's head and smacked the boy behind him, who stomped his foot in frustration as his lavender sphere dissipated like fog. Now Ben just stood there, attempting to hold his own red energy close to his narrow, heaving chest. He looked over at his uncle and back at the sphere, and Luke moved closer, nodding his head as he spoke, too softly for Han to hear.

"What's happening?" asked Poe.

Han shushed him with an abrupt hand gesture, trying to stifle the impulse to run to his son. Luke wouldn't want him interfering at what he would undoubtedly call a "crucial moment." He ground his jaw. Damn all the Jedi to hell and back.

Luke kept talking and had raised his own hands as well, and the energy shrank somewhat in Ben's hands…until it burst like an ion grenade and knocked him and three other kids down. Luke, sent flying backward, skidded on his feet and rushed to the children, tossing his cloak roughly behind him as he knelt.

By that time Han was there, too, having sprinted like he had a rathtar hot on his tail. He stood for a moment, panting, wanting to shove Luke aside and snatch his son up in his arms. But Luke and Ben sat closely together and the boy nodded jerkily in the way Han knew meant he was trying not to cry: his chin wrinkled, lips pressed together, eyes locked desperately on Luke's. A hug now _would_ make him cry, and Han remembered what it meant to be a boy crying in front of his friends, if not what it meant to be hugged by his father.

Instead, he turned to make sure the other kids were all right, offering his hand to the first girl he saw. She'd had the wind knocked out of her, but was otherwise fine—which Luke probably already knew through one of his weird Force probes. Two boys sat up and dusted off their pale robes, then helped each other to stand. The other trainees, skittish as tauntauns, gave the recovering kids a wide berth and stared at Ben with something like fear and awe in their eyes. Ben hadn't told him and Leia about any specific friends, and Han had chalked it up as one of those Jedi rules about not forming emotional attachments…but could it be something more? Was he as frightening to these kids as he'd been to his non-Force sensitive classmates back home? Han filed this away for future examination.

Now, with hands on hips, he had to stand there and wait for Luke to dismiss his trainee for the weekend. He tried not to stare as Ben listened to Luke's soothing murmurs—something about "peace leads to control" or some shit—and looked instead into the bright, blank sky.

It was unsettling, not knowing where the sun was on this damned terraformed dirt heap. You didn't know which way to look. And there were no shadows, either, that you could see. It was creepy and disorienting, and though Han was relieved to finally label it as such, it didn't make the hairs on the back of his neck lie down.

When at last Luke did dismiss him, Ben brushed off his dark cowl and earth-colored leggings as he sauntered over like a clumsy Kaminoan, all arms and legs and long neck. Han caught him in a hug, marveling at the height at which Ben's limbs wrapped around his ribs when he returned the embrace. He was as tall as Leia now, and Han was suddenly grateful that she'd been detained today for a series of important meetings regarding an alliance with Eufornis Major. The boy was growing up too fast, and she'd hate to get weepy in front of everyone. Han planted a lingering kiss on Ben's long, unkempt hair, breathing in his warm scent and closing his eyes to stop their damned prickling.

He raised his head to catch Luke regarding them with a strange expression, but Han knew better than to wonder, much less ask. "See you," he said brusquely, and Luke nodded, turning back to the rest of the students, whose training would continue until sunset. If Luke had something to say, they'd have time to talk when he brought Ben back in three days.

"Good to see you, kid," said Han, draping his arm over Ben's shoulders as they turned to walk back to the _Falcon_. The younglings, now that the interruption was over, scurried to form orderly lines once more.

Ben watched his boots scuff along the gritty dais. "You too, Dad." He wiped his nose on his sleeve, keeping his face down.

Was he crying? Surely he missed his parents as much as they missed him, though as a Jedi-in-training he wasn't supposed to admit it. Or was he upset because of the mistake he'd made in front of his friends, in front of his father? Han would make sure to reassure him later, after he'd calmed down. He pressed the palm of his hand against Ben's temple and pulled him closer for another peck on the forehead, and Ben's arm snaked around his back. Han's throat worked as he swallowed another lump of emotion.

But when they stepped off the dais onto the low grass Ben stopped. "What's _he_ doing here?" His flinty eyes trained on Poe, who had remained near the edge of the field of long purple grass, looking weirdly tiny wearing his mother's too-large nerf skin jacket.

"Oh, I brought Poe along to let him try the _Falcon_ ," said Han, sliding his hand onto Ben's shoulder and giving it a squeeze. "He'll probably train to be a fighter pilot in a few years, and he wants to fly everything he can in the meantime. He's not bad."

"Really," said Ben, the muscles of his jaw flexing as he bit down on the word.

Uh-oh. What did people say about the road to hell and good intentions? Han watched as Ben pressed his lips together and balled his hands into fists.

"Hey. _Hey_ ," said Han, pulling him into his armpit again and ruffling his hair, regretting the action almost immediately as he felt the stiff resistance in his son's wiry body. He released him and looked at him for a moment before he started moving again, hoping that Ben would shake it off while he followed him back to the ship. "Come on. You can fly us home."

Side by side, not touching, they'd walked almost all the way back to Poe when Ben finally muttered, "No, thanks."

* * *

The stars slashed through the darkness outside the _Falcon's_ transparisteel, each sun sacrificing a perfect, fiery sphere into blade-like elongation as time and space imposed the illusion of two-dimensional length.

Since Leia was busy for the rest of the day, Han planned to stop at Maz's tavern on Takodana and let one of the boys fly home from there. If Leia could secure an alliance with Eufornis, along with all the potential financial support for the Resistance that would entail, they'd soon have all their X-wings in working order instead of the half fleet she lost sleep over now—though insomnia over such real-world concerns was, in Han's opinion, infinitely preferable to the nightmares she'd thankfully stopped having after Ben went off to train. If she'd asked Han (and she never did), he'd have told her it was as though she'd fretted so for her son's future that it had manifested in night terrors, and now that that future seemed settled she could relax…whereas Han had become more agitated and restless, that old wanderlust taking hold. Well, you couldn't have everything.

They could, however, have laser tips. Many of the X-wings needed replacements, and Han happened to know a smuggler who claimed to have a stash; he might be willing to part with them for the right price. Leia wouldn't be pleased to hear that her husband had reopened such suspect back-alley channels, but hell, someone had to do it. Laser tips didn't grow on trees, and she wouldn't turn them away once he'd placed those apples at her feet, so to speak. Leia helped the Resistance in the ways she knew best, Han in his.

Besides, they could always kiss and make up after the fact.

Han grinned, imagining how he'd explain away his foray into such unsavory fringes, followed by all the ways he would make it up to her, preferably nonverbally and horizontally. Of course, that was all predicated on whether he could get her to come to bed at a reasonable hour, and he couldn't count on that anymore. His grin slipped a little and he rubbed a hand over his jaw, trying not to dwell.

As if she'd read his mind, he received a subspace radio communication from General Organa. He pressed the button to accept it.

"Miss me, princess?" he said with as much of a leer as he could manage with his voice alone. He really needed to upgrade the Chedak to an actual holographic comm system someday so she'd get the full effect of his long-distance ogling.

Her voice crackled and cut out, but he caught a brief laugh just before she began an exhausted tirade of complaints about the cautious representatives Eufornis Major had sent. At least she hadn't had to travel there for the negotiations, so she'd be waiting at home when he got back with their son.

"Where's Ben?" she asked. It sounded like she was talking around a mouthful of food. Multi-tasking, as always.

"I'll call him-"

The kid appeared right next to him as though he'd already been summoned, startling his father and making him run a hand through his hair to save face.

Ben folded himself into the copilot's seat and bent his long legs up to his chest, arms around his knees. Han waved sharply at his feet and Ben took his boots off the admittedly dirty chair (it was the principle of the thing), sprawling them out in front of him as he leaned back and stared at the blinking buttons on the cockpit's ceiling.

"Hi, Mom," said Ben, swiveling the chair back and forth, back and forth, as he gazed overhead.

"I'm sorry I couldn't come with your father to pick you up," her voice said over the poor connection.

"S'okay," said Ben, still swiveling. "He brought Poe."

"I know. We thought you might want to catch up with each other."

"Mm-hmm," said Ben. "Because we won't have enough time to talk while we're bunking together in my room at home, will we?"

Han resisted the impulse to chastise Ben for his snarky comment when he took in his frown, his flushing cheeks, his dark, blinking eyes still focused on the lights above. The kid kept rotating in the seat, hands draped over the armrests, fingertips drumming. It couldn't be easy, having another kid sharing his parents. But as Leia had often said, what else could they do?

Chatter through the signal told him that C-3PO was with Leia.

"Hey, Threepio!" Ben called over the squeak of his twirling seat. "Whatcha eating for lunch?" It was an old joke between them, and a script that the droid knew by heart.

"I am eating my words," replied Threepio cheerfully. "And how are you, Master Ben?"

"On my way home."

"Oh, how wonderful! What happy news-"

"How's your training coming along?" Leia interrupted. "I want to hear about everything."

Han knew how it pained her not to know their son's daily routine, not to be able to cheer his successes and boost him up after his failures. They had to trust Luke for that…but Luke had so many other students that Han wondered how much individual attention Ben actually got. Not that Ben would _want_ his hand held, but still. And then there was the matter of how the other kids had looked at him like some kind of god, or devil.

"It's going fine," Ben said, swiveling.

Han's hand shot out and stopped the chair. When Ben looked over at him, Han pointed at the Chedak and mouthed, _Talk to your mother_.

Ben gave Han a death stare, which Han returned even more forcefully; but he sat up and cleared his throat, looking at the speaker as though he might see his mother's expectant face. "I accidentally knocked over three people today. And almost Uncle Luke, too."

Han rolled his eyes, pressing his lips together to prevent a remark from slipping out.

"What do you mean?" came Leia's careful voice.

"Um, well, we were doing our forms, and my Force sphere got more and more…kind of…" Ben held his hands apart and seemed to be searching for the word.

"Out of control?" supplied Han.

"I was going to say _potent_ ," said Ben, giving him a sidelong look. "But Uncle Luke doesn't want it that way, and I haven't quite figured out how to…how to make it…"

Ben looked through the transparisteel as though something had caught his attention. His face went slack, and Han's heart thudded inexplicably. He looked down at the scanners and readouts, but there was nothing out there in the glittering darkness.

The radio connection sputtered as Leia said something.

"…weaker," Ben finally finished. He blinked, turning, his eyes scavenging his father's face.

Han's neck hairs rose again. Thinking Ben must still feel embarrassed about what happened today, he offered his son a smile. Ben flushed and turned away to fiddle with a loose thread on his cowl.

Han felt his jaw tightening. If they saw each other more often, then all the little misfires like this one wouldn't feel so damned fraught with significance.

"—else there?" Leia's voice was saying as the connection resumed. "Are you okay, Ben?"

"Yeah, Mom," said Ben, slouching back again with his long legs extended. "Fine. I'll figure it out."

"I know you will," she said, and Han knew that if she were here she'd be shooting him one of her Looks, as though he could help their son but willfully refused to do so.

"Are you heading back in?" he asked to redirect her ire to the unsatisfactory representatives.

"Yes, we've got one more session this afternoon before we break for dinner. Possibly a morning follow-up, if all goes well."

"We'll see you tonight, then."

He heard the smile in her voice. "My two favorite men, home at the same time."

"Three," Ben reminded her. "Don't forget Poe."

Han was sure he heard Leia sigh through the radio connection, but there was no point arguing with Ben again about this. Besides, he was staring at Jakku as they passed, his brows quirking in concentration, making him look like a young man instead of just a kid.

Feeling his father's gaze, he sat up, and there was the familiar, open smile that transformed his face faster than you could blink, as though he hadn't just uttered the jab about Poe. "Bye, Mom. See you later."

The Chedak clicked off with a loud, fuzzy _clack_ and Han was alone with his son once more. They sat in silence for a time. Han considered sending him back to keep Poe company at the holotable, but Ben seemed content here. And there was nothing wrong with being selfish about your son.

"You've never been to Maz's tavern with me, have you?"

"No."

"Well, today's the day, my fine fellow."

"Are you serious?" Ben's face lit up again as he leaned toward Han. "I had a dream just last night that I—" But he cut himself off, looking guilty, as if someone had reprimanded him for saying something inappropriate.

Han waited, trying not to push, to let him come to him, but finally he couldn't help prodding, "Yeah?"

"Nothing. Just a dream that I—we went there. Pretty weird, huh?" He laughed, a quick bark that didn't sound like Ben at all.

"Do you still have those nightmares?"

For a strange moment Ben looked at once distraught and relieved, then he carefully turned to look back out into the starry sky. "No."

Han swallowed and forged ahead. "Are you sure?"

Ben chewed on his lower lip. Finally he said, "Have you ever felt like you were in two places at once?"

Only when he'd tried, over and over again, to leave the old Rebel Alliance behind during their greatest need. But he'd come back to where he was supposed to be, and the feelings had passed.

Was Ben hinting that he wanted to come home? Han's heart did something strange inside his chest as, for one exquisite moment, he dared to hope. But was coming home the best thing for Ben? His son was already a different person than he'd been two years ago, for better or worse. Each time he saw him he had the miserable feeling that his son was simultaneously hanging on and slipping through his fingers like a serpent.

"Ben." _Do you want to come home?_ "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. Just tired. Never mind." The boy's laughter was brittle as he tore his gaze from his father's, his finger shaking a bit when he pointed toward a dot growing slowly larger outside the transparisteel. "Isn't that Takodana?"

It was. And the moment, whatever it should have been, slithered away and never came back.

* * *

"Does Mom know we're here?" asked Ben, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the dark din within Maz's tavern.

"Not yet," Han muttered in reply.

Ben smirked, a breath of laughter escaping through his nose. Frankly, Han was glad to see something like excitement, even if it was only the thrill of doing something slightly illicit, after the weird tension back on the _Falcon_. He'd even acted oddly when they first approached Maz's, striding through the front doors with his jaw clenched in steely resignation, as though he were accepting a prison sentence.

Poe, standing half a head shorter than the younger boy, seemed in a trance at the sensory overload. He sniffed. "What's that spice I smell?"

"Probably all of them," replied Han.

He made brief eye contact with Maz, but she pretended not to have seen him. She knew what he hoped to accomplish, and she wouldn't bring attention to the former smuggler by shouting out his name today. She disappeared down a corridor just as Han spotted his contact.

"Over here, come on. Let me do the talking." He took a step forward, then pivoted back to the boys. "You remember what I told you on the ship about the rules?"

He hated to nag, but he couldn't be sure the boys had heard him while Poe focused on not crashing and Ben sat behind them radiating sullenness like a dark sun. He wore the same expression now as he rolled his eyes upward.

"Yes. Don't approach the bar. Don't jostle anyone-"

"-because you _will_ get punched in the face," Poe spoke over him with a grin. "Keep your shoulders back and head held high, but don't make eye contact. Don't introduce yourselves to anyone."

"You especially, Ben," Han said. He strode into the smoky room, ignoring Ben's frown of annoyance. "Stick with me. This meeting shouldn't take long."

Toka Riff sat at a small table near the bar, sipping his bitter tea through a slotted steel straw in a wooden tankard. His narrowed black eyes roved from one body to the next as though he weren't waiting for anyone, even though Han knew the smuggler had already seen him. He slid into the chair opposite and gestured for the boys to join them. Ben, still and stoic, looked somehow as though he belonged here, despite his smooth cheeks and skinny frame, while Poe kept fidgeting.

"Long time no see," said Han as he kicked Poe under the table. "When did you get so old?" He gestured toward Toka's long, drooping mustache that now boasted more grey hairs than black ones.

"When did you get domesticated?" the smuggler shot back, keeping his eyes on Han while gesturing with each hand to the boys on either side of him.

Well, Han had to expect some ribbing. He graced Toka with what he hoped was still a raffish grin. "Someone has to bring up the next generation of good-for-nothings."

Toka threw his head back and laughed, the sound cutting through the racket of the crowded room, then set his tankard down. "It's good to see you, Solo."

"You, too, Riff."

Toka glanced at the boys once more before leaning forward to Han. He could probably figure out that one of them was Han's kid, but he didn't ask, nor did he remark on Ben's gauzy clothing and cowl, so different from Han's and Poe's civilian garb. A good smuggler didn't talk about personal stuff any more than he had to, and he certainly didn't ask.

"So," Toka said, steepling his fingers with both elbows on the table. "Laser tips."

"You got 'em?"

Toka closed his eyes for a moment and gave a nod.

"Where'd you manage to—"

"Has it really been so long since you've done this?"

"Sorry," said Han, palms up. "Never mind. I don't want to know."

"I've got twenty-three laser tips."

Han tried to hide his relief behind a planetary poker face. That was far more than he'd hoped for, but it would be good to have extra if fighting escalated as Leia expected it would. Han blew his breath out and raised his eyebrows as though he would be doing Toka a favor by taking all of them. "I gotta tell you, that's a lot more than we need."

"I don't want credits."

Han slouched back in the chair, waiting.

"We want protection."

This was new. Han ran a thumb along the edge of the grimy table, considering. True, Haruun Kal sat in the Dustig sector, where First Order ships had been sighted. But had the Order already put out its feelers there? Were they recruiting stormtroopers even now from the war-torn population? A melting pot of civil unrest and old Imperial oppression, it wouldn't be difficult to entice the natives or immigrants who lived there to seek a more stable life with the Order.

"Tell me everything," said Han.

At that moment a shadow fell across the table and he looked up. A tall boy, perhaps three or four years older than Ben, stood a few feet away, waiting to get their attention. His face was as pale as snow, and his hair was a brighter orange than a starfighter pilot's uniform. But his blue eyes, the color of the hottest part of a candle flame, were the most startling aspect of his appearance.

"Excuse me," he said in that low rumble that only young teenage boys tried to affect, "but would you two like to play a game of Sabacc with me? I've got a spot over there."

He jerked his thumb behind him. Beyond a clutch of bar patrons, just in front of the empty musical stage, a Sabacc table waited, its suspension field already activated and deck of cards waiting to be shuffled and dealt. The boy's erect posture stirred something in Han's memory, but Ben was already rising, his face grim as he pressed his hands against the table to stand.

"Sure," he said, tossing his long hair out of his eyes, and his tone was oddly easy, as though he'd known this kid all his life. "Come on, Poe."

Poe didn't have to be asked twice, and he shot up so quickly he nearly knocked over his chair.

Han looked up at his son with wide eyes and considered asking who'd drugged him, because Ben never took up with strangers. Perhaps he felt so isolated at the academy that any new contact felt like a glass of fresh water after a drought. Or maybe being forced to be around the other Jedi trainees for the past couple of years had improved his social skills. It gave Han hope that, one day, his son might actually talk to a girl.

A quick scan of the redhaired kid's clothing revealed no weapons, or bulges where any might be hidden, although there was always the risk of a knife tucked inside a boot. But, despite his reservations, he had to loosen the leash. Han turned to nod his assent to Ben, but he'd already crossed around the table and followed the redhead, Poe trotting along behind. He knew Poe kept a knife in his boot, and Ben…well, Ben was learning things from Luke that Han couldn't begin to understand. He had to think his son could handle himself. His _Jedi_ son. He shook his head, tried to shake the worry out of it.

After the three boys settled into chairs and began their Sabacc game, Han returned his attention to Toka. "Well?"

His old associate sighed, fingering the edge of his tankard, clicking the metal straw against the lip of it.

"It started about a year ago. The Order—" Toka whispered the name, darting his eyes to ensure no one listened. Then he stopped and chewed on the inside of his pockmarked cheek for a long time, blinking his eyes against sudden wetness. He exhaled again, took a shuddering breath, and went on. "It took us a while to figure out what was happening. Over the course of a year, little by little, they took…hundreds, before we realized they were connected, and who was behind it." He swallowed, gathering himself a third time. "Families killed. The infants gone missing. _All infants_. My sister and her husband—"

Han held up a hand and Toka, seeming grateful to stop talking, stared at his tankard on the table and breathed slowly until he was composed once more, giving Han time to think.

First the Jedi, and now this. Fear and anger roiled in Han's gut as he tried to imagine why the Order could possibly want infants, yanked from the arms of their murdered mothers and fathers. All the damned war orphans, fucked up for life, no matter where they ended up. His thoughts flitted to Poe, though just now he couldn't see him through the press of patrons, and he was glad that he and Leia were able to spare even one of those orphans a life of scrambling and scavenging, of whoring and gambling and thieving.

He got up and, after glancing over to make sure the boys were all right, crossed to the bar and ordered two spiced ales, barely looking at the barkeep as he slid the credits toward him across the worn bar top. When he returned he set one ale in front of Toka and they sat together in silence, drinking. His gaze rested on the boys' game while he tried to think. It was clear from Poe's flinging hand gestures and indignant expression who was losing. Apparently not everything came to that kid as easily as flying did.

Flying. Starfighter pilots. Suddenly it hit him, and when it did Han took several gulps of ale and set the glass down heavily. The Order would probably use the young captives, once they grew up, for ion cannon fodder, expendables to repopulate their depleted stormtrooper regiment. Which meant they had eighteen, maybe twenty years before things would get really bad, unless someone stopped it first.

Would this goddamned war never end?

"Let me talk to General Organa," muttered Han. "We'll see what we can do."

"If you can help us," said Toka, his black eyes glimmering with impotent rage, "the laser tips, and everything else we have to fight a war, are yours."

A commotion caught Han's attention. Poe had risen and was speaking sharply into the pale kid's face, poking his finger into his chest. The kid wore an insufferable sneer and muttered something. Ben stood, too, and crossed around to stand next to Poe.

 _Shit_. "Hang on, Toka."

Han crept toward them, trying to keep his distance to allow the boys to work it out themselves, if they could. A group of men already three sheets to the wind stood between him and the boys, and he edged around them, his hand on his blaster out of habit, though he knew Maz would kill him if she found out he'd used it. And the boy, whatever sort of asshole he might be, was a kid, after all. He removed his hand from the grip.

"I'm not implying you're an idiot," said the ginger kid, backing out of Poe's reach toward the group of drunkards, "I'm _saying_ it. You're the worst Sabacc player I've ever met."

"Shut up, Hux," Ben spat, his hands curling into fists, eyes flashing dangerously. "It's a game of _chance_. You could've lost just as easily. So could I. Or are you an _idiot_ who can't remember that?"

"Yeah, dumbass," Poe put in with a tilt of his chin.

"What did you call me?" Hux said, advancing again on Poe, even though it had been Ben who'd insulted him first.

"Dumb. Ass." Poe squared his shoulders, fingers flexing as though he was raring for a scrap with this clown.

With a quick, violent motion Hux shot his arm out and shoved Poe in the chest. The backs of his knees hit the stage skirt and he fell onto the platform, rolling at once to his hands and knees, rubbing his sternum. He came to a crouch and his hand went to his boot.

"No!" Han shouted as Poe drew the knife, pausing with it halfway out to flick wide eyes toward him.

But then Hux took a step toward Ben. What came next happened so quickly that Han wasn't quite sure what he saw. Ben raised both hands, and there was somehow an absence of sound and the addition of pressure, like jumping to lightspeed, and then Hux hurtled back into the crowd of drunk men, knocking a few of them down. Drinks flew and spilled everywhere, clear and red and purple and black, and another man slipped on a gobbet of slime and fell onto the drunks already cursing on the floor.

 _Shit_ , Han thought again, but now he was trapped behind the group of angry men. Hux had come to his feet once more, and a single line of blood trickled from his nose onto his colorless lips, his laughter full of malicious glee as he stared into Ben's ferocious face.

"It's true. It's _true_ ," he crowed over and over again, heedless of the three men bearing down on him, shoving one shoulder and the other, thick fingers clenching by their sides for a fight.

Another man turned and advanced on Ben. Poe had leapt down beside him, knife in hand but hidden behind his hip. _No_.

"Hey. Hey, fellas," said Han loudly. He dug into his pocket for some credits. "Don't trouble yourselves. Just kids being stupid. Drinks on me, whaddaya say?"

He shook his handful of credits in front of the glazed eyes of the man bearing down on Ben, and the man turned like an eopie and followed him to the bar. Han called to the others, asking what they wanted, and lured them one by one. The bartender shot Han an appreciative look before he began pouring glasses and tankards, and one of the servers went out to sweep and mop up the broken glass and debris.

Han looked around to see Hux slipping something into Ben's hand, disguising it as a conciliatory handshake just before he disappeared into the crowd. Ben cradled it like a jewel, then hid it within the folds of his robes.

Poe slid his knife back into his boot and stood, looking after Hux for a moment, then back at Ben. "Thanks for sticking up for me," he said. Then he gestured to Ben's robes. "Um. What was that?"

Ben turned an odd look to him and muttered something Han didn't catch. Poe furrowed his brow and rubbed his head as though he had a sudden headache.

"You boys okay?" asked Han, joining them. Ben nodded, swallowing and glancing at Poe, who looked around as though disoriented. "Poe. You all right?"

"Yeah," he said vaguely. "I think—I was going to say—I can't remember."

"Must not have been important," Ben said, quoting one of Leia's most aggravating quips. But there was no smile behind his eyes.

"Ben," said Han. "What did that kid give you? Looked like a holodisc."

Ben looked into his father's eyes as though he were weighing whether or not to tell him the truth. He looked frightened, and suddenly Han was afraid, too.

He fell into darkness as his son said, " _You will forget that you saw Hux hand me anything_."

* * *

Leaving Takodana, Poe piloted the _Falcon_ again because Ben said he didn't want to. He sat mute behind them, staring out into the black as Poe broke atmo and shot them into the stars. Once, when Han looked back, he saw tears on Ben's cheeks, which he wiped hastily away when he felt his father's eyes on him.

To hell with everything. He was just going to come out and ask, Luke and Leia and every Jedi that ever lived be damned.

"Do you want to come home, Ben?"

Ben started to cry again, his chin wrinkling as he sobbed silently, turning away from his father to hide his face.

"I can't."

* * *

 _ **A/N: Your feedback about the fic continue to mean a great deal to us. Only two chapters left! Look for Chapter 6 on Wednesday, April 6. - Brat & Tater  
**_


	6. No Place I Can Be

**6\. No Place I Can Be**

"That _can't_ be our son."

Leia didn't realize she'd spoken that thought aloud until Han replied under his breath, "He can barely fit in there anymore."

True enough, it was Luke's X-wing. But the fifteen-year-old now unfolding his hunched body from the pilot's seat seemed half a head taller since the last time they'd seen him four months ago. How did Luke keep him in clothes that fit?

The pilot rolled his shoulders, removed Luke's outdated and battered Rebellion helmet, and shook out a mane of dark locks. Then he settled his eyes on the pair waiting beside the landing pad as though he'd sensed them there, which he probably had. Nevertheless, Leia raised a hand to Ben in greeting, for she and Han both wore the headscarves and tinted goggles that the natives recommended. Though mild by the planet's standards, this sandstorm would abrade the eyes and occlude the nostrils, they'd said. And now Leia believed them.

Jakku. What a pitstop for a rendezvous. If the Wheel Races didn't make this place a stomping ground for pilots (many of whom didn't have much choice what sort of rattletrap jalopy they sat in, whether on land or in space), she doubted she would've given the planet a second thought. But Han reminded her it would be a convenient meeting point for them and for Ben, coming as they were from Mirrin Prime and Rakata Prime's closest moon, so she'd seized the opportunity to speak with the racers last night and left the meeting satisfied that she might have enticed one or two to join the Resistance. But today she, Han, and Ben would take the _Falcon_ to Corellia, where they would have a rare family holiday while Leia met with Garm Bel Iblis, a former senator and old friend of her father's who'd disagreed with the Rebel Alliance and waged his own war against the Empire. She hated to let work intrude on their precious time together, but it was the only time Bel Iblis was free, and persuading one of the Core Worlds of how vital it was to begin rebuilding the military as the First Order gained traction was of utmost importance. It wasn't as if Ben wasn't used to the lines being blurred between work and play. Now he was old enough to begin to understand why they sometimes must.

He folded himself in half again to stow the helmet in the ship, his brown Jedi robes fluttering from his hips like a banner as he rummaged around until he came up with a small travel pack and a pair of goggles. He put them on and raised his black cowl over his head, tying the tattered ends over his nose and mouth before closing the X-wing's canopy and hopping nimbly down to the ground. Leia reached for Han's hand. It felt dry and gritty from the sand, as did hers, but it was warm and strong, too. Sometimes she hated how much she needed his strength, but need it she did.

Because of the races they were hardly the only people gathered at the landing pad, but her son was the only one she saw as he loped toward them, a strange, animal grace in his lumbering gait. Her breath hitched and she fought the impulse to run to him. Han squeezed her hand hard. He knew.

"Mother," said the deep voice beneath the cowl. "Father."

Leia's brow furrlowed as the formal terms of address sank in. Was their teenager trying to tell them he wasn't a boy anymore? Perhaps he was trying on distance as if it were a new set of clothes.

Well, she was having none of that. Not today.

"Come here, you," she said, holding out her arms.

Ben had to stoop to let Leia hug him, the ends of their scarves slapping against their faces in the harsh wind. Reasserting the formality, he extended a hand to Han, who clasped it merely to tug him closer and clap his other arm around his shoulders. When had they gotten so broad?

"How was your trip?" asked Leia.

Ben shrugged. "Cramped."

"Never thought I'd say it," said Han, "but you're too tall to pilot an X-wing."

"We can't all be miniature like Poe."

"Watch it, he's not here to defend himself."

"I'm shocked."

"All right, let's start over," said Leia. She put on her brightest voice. "Hello, Ben. We missed you."

He shifted as though he were uncomfortable. "Me, too," he mumbled. "Are we going to look at the graveyard now?"

"Sure, kid," said Han. "Let's get a speeder."

* * *

The Starship Graveyard was something Leia hadn't thought to take in while they were here, but there was no rush to reach Corellia today. So while Han drove, Leia sat in the tiny back seat of the speeder with Ben and held his hand. He'd insisted that she ride in front beside Han, and she'd insisted that she'd do no such thing when she hadn't seen her son in four months, and here they both were, more cramped than he'd been in the X-wing. He was still a skinny kid, but his hand was huge around hers, and he had to tuck his knees up to fit.

It was strange being unable to see his face under the cowl and dark goggles. There was no way to tell how he was feeling, or even whether he was smiling or frowning. Instinctively she reached out in the Force.

In an instant, brittle walls shot up and he yanked his hand away, turning toward her.

"Mom!" he cried, the dark goggles looming over her. Leia didn't need the Force to feel the anger coming off him in waves.

"Sorry, sorry," she said, raising her hands. "It's been so long."

"You wouldn't like it if I did that to you."

"You're right. I apologize."

Her baby was nearly a man now, and she would have to let him have some secrets. But he'd never seemed to feel her reaching out to him before, or if he did he didn't seem to mind it. It must have been Luke's training, which she supposed was a good thing. Maybe he was learning to stop accidentally reading people's minds. She didn't feel him poking around in hers, anyhow.

The barriers he'd just raised gave her hope that no one was poking around in Ben's, either.

Still, this visit was beginning to feel like one false start after another, and she berated herself for being the cause of this one.

"I just…I want to know how you're doing. How's training?"

Ben sat back and tucked his fingers behind the knees propped against the front seat. "Fine."

Leia held on as the wind buffeted the open speeder on one side and then the other as Han turned to cross over a dune. When Ben didn't go on, she prodded, "Anything new?"

His head flopped back and his chest rose and fell as though he'd sighed. "Uncle Luke brought in a man to talk with us," he said loudly over the wind. "Some gypsy traveler named Lor San Tekka."

"Ah."

She knew him, of course, having relied frequently on his exploration of the galaxy to help reconstruct accurate maps of Resistance-sympathetic territories, while Luke delved into Tekka's historical Jedi records to hone the pedagogy of his small academy.

"What did he talk about?"

Ben shrugged. "The old Jedi Knights."

"What about them?"

"That they weren't traitors."

"Well, we knew that. What else?"

"I don't know. Spiritual stuff about the Light. I stopped listening."

"Why on earth would you stop listening to that?"

"The Force is an actual thing, Mother. It's science. Not religion."

"So because it works for you, the Force doesn't need anyone telling the rest of the galaxy about it in terms they can understand?"

"Nope."

"That's not very generous of you."

Ben was still for a moment, then he shrugged again. "It's not my job to be generous."

"Oh? And what _is_ your job?"

"To be powerful."

Leia felt her own anger rising now. "To what end?"

"To restore order to the galaxy." Ben turned his blank goggles toward her. "Like you're trying to do."

Somehow the weight of judgment sat heavily in the way he said it. She pursed her lips and looked forward into the rolling dunes, the sand beating against her lenses and making her flinch.

* * *

Half buried in Jakku's sands lurked the carcasses of TIE fighters, X-wings, an AT-AT Imperial Walker, and dozens of other spacecraft; but of all of those, the _Inflictor_ remained the most impressive and the most frightening. Even a dead Star Destroyer looked like a sleeping beast that might rear up and immolate the insignificant humanoids staring at it, hands shielding their goggles under the unrelenting sun.

"The captain crashed it herself," said Ben, who had obviously done some reading about the battle, "to keep it out of the Republic's hands. Smart move."

"I suppose," relented Leia with a frown. "A lot of senseless deaths, though."

"You don't think the Republic would have killed them anyway?"

"Whose side are you on?"

"The truth's, Mom. History is impartial, if you know where to look."

Leia could practically see Han rolling his eyes under the lenses. There was nothing like being lectured about life by a teenager.

At least the sandstorm wasn't as bad on this side of the _Inflictor_ , for now, and they could speak without shouting. A couple of shapes crawled precariously along the outside of the sloping hulk of the Destroyer, slipping inside now to look for items to pry out and sell. There was a lifetime's worth of value to be mined in such a behemoth, and Leia's heart contracted in pity for those who relied on scavenging for a living.

But Han's voice pulled her out of herself, and she knew at once from his tone that he was about to say something potentially embarrassing, hilarious, or more likely both.

"Did I ever tell you about the time," he said, lifting his index finger as though he was about to divulge some heretofore unknown but treasured bit of information, "your mother and I nearly got crushed to death in a trash compactor on one of those?"

Ben glanced at Leia, almost conspiratorially through the scarf, then deadpanned, "No, Dad, you never did. Definitely not a hundred times..."

"Don't believe me, you can ask Chewie. He was there. And Luke."

"And something slimy?" Ben prompted.

"I can't remember what," came Han's oft-recited reply.

Even under his scarf Leia could tell Han was grinning, happy to have an audience for one of his favorite war stories. Happy it was Ben. She was sorry the sandy planet necessitated covering up, because she had to miss out on seeing the way his face lit up when he smiled. So much like Ben's.

"Luke was screaming like a little girl into his commlink for the droids to shut down the garbage mashers. Luckily we could always count on Artoo. Threepio, on the other hand—"

"Threepio does his best," Leia cut in. "He has other skills. Thankfully."

"I can't wait to see him," said Ben. "Uncle Chewie's on board, too, right?"

"Yeah," Han replied. "I'd prefer someone staying with the _Falcon_ while we're on Corellia, and your mom'll need Threepio with her for the negotiations. He's been a little buggy lately, though, and Chewie and I can't figure out—"

"Wait, which one was it?" interrupted Ben. "The Star Destroyer you were on? Was it Vader's? Was he there?"

"You know something, kid? You sure know how to ruin a good story." Han stalked away, flinging his arms up in frustration.

"I'm just asking," Ben said in a petulant voice. "He was your father, Mom."

"He—" Leia tried to swallow, but her throat was as dry as the shifting sands beneath her feet, and the sweat under her shirt felt suddenly cold as it trickled down her spine. "Darth Vader was my _captor_. You know what he did to us."

"We're not doing this again," said Han, wheeling around and coming close to Ben, who stood only a couple of inches shorter than him now. "Just because someone is family doesn't mean you owe them respect, much less _love_. That man—"

"Han, it's all right—"

"Just a second, Leia. Luke tells me you keep asking about Vader. What the hell are you thinking, Ben?

"He was my grandfather. The Force was strong in him."

"I don't care if the Force gave _birth_ to him, that doesn't mean—"

"Exactly. Lor San Tekka said that it did."

The chill in her spine seemed to freeze Leia in place. She had to work to make her lips form her question. "What do you mean by that, Ben?"

"The old man said he found a set of records that once belonged to one of the old Jedi Knights. Legend says Anakin Skywalker had no father, but the record showed his midichlorians—whatever those are—were through the roof. The record speculated that the _Force_ brought him into being as some sort of Chosen One."

"Who the hell would speculate that kind of nonsense?" said Han.

"A Jedi master named Jinn," said Ben reasonably. The sandstorm was picking up, and he had to raise his voice to be heard over the scream of wind over the _Inflictor's_ hull. "Have you heard of him? He was well-respected by the Jedi Council, according to Tekka."

"That sounds like a made-up folk tale meant to scare the masses," said Leia, the derision in her voice belying the trembling in her body. "I thought you didn't believe in religion."

"I believe in science. I believe in truth. I believe in my family, and who I'm meant to be."

Han's fingers twitched, and Leia could see by the set of his shoulders that he wouldn't keep his temper in check for long. Leia stepped in front of him and rested the palm of her hand on his chest until he stepped back. Then she turned to Ben with a confrontational tilt of her head, hands on hips.

"All right," said Ben, rounding his back to lower himself a bit more to Leia's level. "Fine. Forget Vader. But didn't you ever wonder who your real mother was, Mom?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Your birth mother."

"Ben," she said, shaking her head. "Don't."

"But it's _good_ , Mom."

Ben raised his hands in placation, a gesture that looked so like Han that she wanted to weep. The flat goggles on his face reflected the sun, blinding her momentarily with a flash of light. Something in a dark corner of her mind told her to get away— _But why? This is my son,_ another part retorted—and her boot slid in the dry, slippery sand as she stepped backward. Han's hands caught her upper arms and steadied her.

"She was a _queen_." Ben drew himself up to his full height, and she felt inexplicably afraid.

"Stop it," she snapped into the wind. "My mother and father died on Alderaan. That's all I need to know."

"But it's not enough!" Ben shouted, an unrecognizable ferocity in his tensed torso, his hands curled into tight fists.

Leia stared at the cowl and the goggles, suddenly and irrationally desperate to snatch them away. "Not enough for whom?"

A powerful gust of wind sent Ben stumbling backward. He caught himself just as Han clasped his elbow and steered him wordlessly toward the speeder, Leia following in a daze.

They barely made it to the _Falcon_ and off planet before the sandstorm turned into a hurricane.

* * *

Ben lay on his back with one leg bent and the other dangling on the metal grate flooring as he reclined, awkwardly prostrate on the curved seat behind the holotable in the main hold. He wore headphones over his ears and held a datapad in one hand as he tapped something on its small screen with the other. He frowned.

"Dad," he said, sitting up and staring at the datapad. Yanking the headphones off, he tossed them onto the seat. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and blew onto the datapad's screen. They'd all have sand on and in everything until they reached a good 'fresher. "Why is the HoloNet not working?"

Han had been heading to join Chewie in the cockpit but turned back at the question. "You're kidding, right?"

"No, I'm not. I need to send some messages to my friends."

With a tilt of his chin, Han raised his eyebrows in Leia's direction as if to say, _See? He has friends._ As though she'd been the one worrying about that all this time. "Any of them girls?"

"Dad!" Ben's cheeks flushed pink.

"Must be," declared Han as he reached for the datapad. Ben exited out of the page he was on and tapped a couple more commands before handing it over. Teenagers and their privacy. "You inherited a heart on your sleeve from your mother. I could always tell, no matter what she might say to the contrary."

"Tell what?" asked Leia, but she felt her own cheeks reddening as well.

"Two Solos blushing. My work here is done. Now, let's take a look." Now it was Han's turn to frown as he focused on something at the top of the screen. "Who the hell are 'the Knights of Ben'?"

Ben's flush deepened. He turned away, his hair hiding his eyes. "Just a joke. My friends being funny."

"And this kid with the red hair. He…"

Leia looked up at Han's silence. He swallowed and seemed disoriented for a moment, rubbing his forehead.

"He looks familiar," he finished.

Leia's brow furrowed.

"No one." Ben stood up, coming between Leia and Han. "Never mind, it's not important. Can you fix the HoloNet or not?"

"Oh, there's no HoloNet. Too risky. I don't even use the Chedak anymore if I can help it. The Order can pick up every single message you send and receive. You should know that."

Ben snatched the datapad back. "Of course I do. Why'd you take my pad if you couldn't help me?"

"Because I'm your dad and I'm nosy, that's why."

At the copilot's guttural call from the cockpit, Han turned and shouted, "On my way!" He ducked into the corridor, then stuck his head back into the hold to add, "Oh, hey, Ben. Why don't you take a look at Threepio to see if you can adjust his communication settings? Chewie and I haven't been able to do a thing with him. I'll send him back."

"Sure, Dad," he said glumly.

As Han exited, Ben flung the datapad onto the holotable with a clatter, reclined on the seat again while kicking his headphones to the metal floor, and covered his eyes with his forearm. He wouldn't nap in that mood, Leia knew. He was just brooding.

Leia sat at the corner next to his head and ran her fingers through his hair. His lips twitched and pressed together as though he were annoyed by the action, but after another moment of her silent combing he seemed to relax, although he kept his arm over his eyes. Ben certainly had her elbows, so sharp that Han teased she should register them as weapons. But she could see through the wrapped sleeve the girth of muscle developing along Ben's arm and shoulder. He was changing so quickly she couldn't keep up.

The word _queen_ echoed through her mind in Ben's voice— _but who was that whispering underneath?—_ and she shook her head, still feeling Jakku's sand on her scalp. Queen. _Queen_. She squeezed her eyes shut. Even if that were true, her birth mother—she winced to think of her as Vader's lover, as though that beast might once have possessed an affectionate feeling for another person, no matter what Luke said about the end of his wretched life—could be one of any number of rulers. _Could have been_ , she corrected herself, for she could not imagine any living mother who had a choice relinquishing her two children to strangers.

 _Strangers_. As her fingers sifted through his hair, an image slid into her brain: serpents slithering through grass, searching for undefended eggs sitting in a ground nest. Leia's heart thudded heavily as she remembered the stranger in her strangling nightmares. Where had the dreams gone? She'd been so glad to be rid of them and their suffocating darkness, yet she'd had the illogical thought that they'd somehow passed into her young son, despite his frightened, vehement denials when he was old enough to be asked about it.

But as Ben told her proudly last year, reciting from his lessons, nothing in the Force could be created or truly destroyed, for it all existed at once. He'd gone on about that lesson for an entire evening, coming back repeatedly to _his grandfather_ until Han had stormed out of their quarters and Leia had plummeted into a shouting match with Ben and, later, with Han, that had left her hoarse for two days.

 _Where had the nightmares gone?_

Despite the cowl that had protected his head on Jakku, Ben's hair was still gritty and tangled from the sand and wind. But even with those irritants, his scent remained unmistakably _him_. Chewie said you could always identify a person by smelling the top of his head, and she was inclined to agree with him. This was still her son, this towering, pompous, insecure, terrifying, unknowable kid who thought he had all the answers to the universe.

But whose fault was it that she didn't know him? She clamped her jaw together to quell the tears welling in her eyes, the familiar, heavy press of regret tight in her chest. _Damn it, I had to_ , she told herself for the thousandth time. _It was bigger than me._

Her fingers had nearly combed the worst of the tangles free when she heard two quiet sounds on the seat beside her hip, right under Ben's dangling hand. Plop. Plop. Like water.

"Master Ben! Master Ben!" Threepio's crisp voice called from the corridor doorway, his joints whining musically as he shuffled in. "General Solo asked me—General Solo asked me—to have you assess—to have you assess—my communications system—my communications system."

Ben had already lurched to his feet, wiping his eyes as he went. It might have been merely sand he rubbed away, if not for the two tiny puddles on the seat where his head had rested. He was still so _young_. Couldn't he come home? She pressed the heels of her hands over her eyes until the threat of tears subsided.

Threepio's timing, as always, couldn't be worse.

The droid went on as Ben hunched over and rummaged under the tech station for one of the many small tool kits Han and Chewie kept stashed everywhere, along with weapons, _just in case_.

"I do not detect it—I do not detect it—but he informs me—but he informs me—that I repeat myself—that I repeat myself—"

"Sit down, Threepio," said Ben, "and don't speak again until I ask you to."

Leia had to smile; Ben knew how to handle this droid. Wait, was that a cup full of her _hair pins_ he'd just extracted from the mess of the metal toolbox? Well, she shouldn't feel so shocked. She knew this bucket of bolts had to be held together by something.

"Dad and Chewie already looked at your vocabulator," Ben said after C-3PO had settled himself opposite Leia. "You say you can't tell you're repeating yourself?"

Affirming it, C-3PO began to elaborate, still echoing himself after every phrase.

Ben cut him off. "Maybe it's the internal memory."

While Ben opened Threepio's back plate to access the droid's memory storage banks, Leia glanced surreptitiously at the datapad. The top of the screen still read _The Knights of Ben_ ; beneath that a column of photos of his fellow students stared at her with flat, pixilated expressions. She didn't recognize the red-haired boy Han had wondered about—not as one of the Jedi trainees, nor as an old classmate from the school on Mirrin Prime. Certainly his friends didn't include Poe Dameron. Maybe the stranger had come to lecture Luke's Padawans about some topic, just as Lor San Tekka had. _Stranger_ , she thought again with a shudder.

Leia waited until Ben was engrossed in his task before she broached the subject. "So. The Knights of Ben," she began, fingering the edge of the datapad.

He frowned as he gently tugged some wires out of the way to reach a deeper circuit board.

"You're not Jedi knights yet, you know."

Han always said the eye roll ran in the family, so she had no one to blame but herself when Ben directed one at her.

"Why do you need to contact them? What's so important that it can't wait until you return next week?"

Closing his eyes, presumably to prevent another eye roll, Ben sighed through his nostrils as though he were being persecuted mercilessly.

Although it was clear he wasn't going to talk, now that Leia had started she couldn't seem to stop. "You just saw them this morning, after all. Did you forget to turn off the burner on the caf or something?"

Ben's jaw tightened and he gripped the spanner tightly. "Mom. Please." He inhaled and exhaled as though trying to collect himself. After a moment he reinserted the spanner into the exposed panel. "Maybe if I reset this—"

"Oh. Oh!" said Threepio.

"Hang on," muttered Ben as he wiggled the spanner with the decidedly non-magical flourish Han had taught him. "Say something else."

"Master Ben." The droid's head swiveled to try to look behind him. "Am I repaired?"

Ben chuckled. "There you go. Just let me get this panel back on."

"You've done it! Oh, thank the Maker!"

"I would've said, 'Thank you, Master Ben,'" he said, still smiling as he finished reattaching the panel and giving the droid an affectionate pat, "but whatever."

"Of course. Thank you, Master Ben. I hope I did not offend. It is merely an expression."

Ben grasped Threepio's forearm and helped him stand. "No offense taken, old pal. I never asked you, who _was_ your maker, anyhow?"

"Why, a young boy on Tatooine, Master Anakin. Anakin Skywalker. Oh."

Threepio looked at Leia and back at Ben. Leia's mouth dropped open as a shiver of fright coursed down her throat, preventing her to speak.

"Oh," said the droid again. "I've just recalled that, how silly of me. I'd forgotten it all this time, but Master Ben seems to have restored my early memory banks. Master Anakin was a slave boy when he assembled me from parts, and I don't recall anything past when he left with young Master Obi-Wan to go and—oh. Oh, dear. Skywalker? Could it be? Oh, dear, dear me."

"Shut up, Threepio," said Leia, trembling.

"Tell me more," Ben said.

Threepio's photoreceptors looked, if possible, even more surprised than usual as he directed his gaze at one human and then the other. Ben loomed over the droid, waiting. Leia reached behind C-3PO to switch him off, but Ben slapped her hand away. Leia's mouth dropped open and she was momentarily speechless.

" _Tell me_ ," he repeated, dark eyes burning.

"We should be there soon." Han's voice carried through the corridor before his body emerged into the hold. "There's a great little dive I want to take you for dinner, but you have to promise not to talk to anyone, or look at them, for that matter—"

Seeing Ben and Leia triangulated with C-3PO, whose head still swiveled back and forth nervously between the two, Han halted and asked in a wary tone, "What's going on?"

"I said tell me everything," hissed Ben, his entire body focused on the droid in front of him.

"Don't, Threepio," said Leia, recovering her voice at last.

"I am quite at a loss, Master Ben, General Organa," the droid spluttered. "On the one hand I am eager to relate—"

"Any story about Vader doesn't bear _relating_ ," Leia said through her teeth. "You are dismissed, Threepio. Go to the cockpit and let Chewie fix your memory again."

The droid obediently shuffled forward.

"No!" shouted Ben, moving to block the exit with hands splayed on either side of the grimy doorway. "I have a right to know about my lineage. Mom, you don't care about your birth mother, and even less about what Vader was trying to do—"

"Leia," said Han slowly. "What's all this?"

"But _I do_ ," Ben finished. "I care. I'm the _only one_ who cares."

"Then you care about the wrong things," said Leia. "We raised you better than that, Ben."

"You raised me with _blinders_ on!"

"You won't scream at your mother," roared Han, raising his voice to top Ben's shout. "Show a little respect while you're on my ship."

"I'm happy to get off at the first stop," Ben retorted, glaring at Han. He pointed a finger, once again looking too much like his father while he raged at him in a low voice. "You're not off the hook, either, Dad. You want to talk about respect? You had a career with the Imperial Navy and you threw it away to go flitting off with the Resistance. The Rebel Alliance. Whatever they called themselves then. Bunch of idiots."

How did Ben know about Han's stint with the Empire? They'd never told him.

"You're on thin ice, kid," Han gritted out.

But Ben knew as well as Leia did that Han's anger often masked uncertainty, and he barked in laughter. "I fell through that ice a long time ago. Your son is gone. Or didn't you notice?"

"Ben, calm down," said Leia, heart thudding with dread. She shouldered past the stunned and—for once—silent Threepio to look up at her son. "Find your center. Reach into the Force with me. Come, sit, I'll meditate with you." She held out her hands for him to grasp, but he wouldn't take them.

"You want me to be small. Weak. _Humble_." He sounded incredulous.

"That's not what I—"

"I'm more than that."

"You think that I want you to be weak?" she demanded. "You know that's not true. Are you reading my mind right now?"

A dangerous smile spread across Ben's face. "Why don't you read mine?"

"Ben." Han reached for his arm. "Stop this. Right now."

Ben pivoted away while taking Leia's hand and pressing it hard to his cheek. He closed his eyes in concentration, as though he had to expend significant effort to allow her in…but she saw it.

A wicked weapon, blinding in a frenzy of crimson fury.

In his hands, her _son's hands_. Faceless, he was unrecognizable, a vessel of wrath in a sea of blackness.

"Where is it?" she asked, wrenching herself back to the _Falcon_ and tossing his hand away in terror, only to step forward again immediately and reach with trembling fingers for his belt as though she could snatch the saber away herself. "Give it to me."

"Ah, you had your chance, Mother." His hand covered a rigid shape, hidden in the folds of his robes at his hip.

"How did you—does Luke know you've already made a lightsaber?"

"A saber?" asked Han. "What-"

"Of course he doesn't," Ben scoffed.

"Ben, don't do this," begged Leia. She hated sounding so helpless, feeling so cornered.

"But I already have."

"It's not too late," said Han, voice faltering. He finally sounded afraid, which terrified Leia far more than the vision of that dreadful weapon had.

"It was too late the day I was born, Father."

Ben wasn't boasting, and he didn't seem proud. For a moment Leia glimpsed in his eyes the frightened four-year-old who'd Force locked himself into the _Falcon's_ cockpit. "I'm destined for great things—"

"Look, son." Han found his voice again. He tried to touch Ben's shoulder, but once more the boy danced away from him toward the tech station. "There's no such thing as destiny. I don't care what Luke or any of the rest of them say, it's not true."

"And Luke knows more than you think," interjected Leia, a fearful anger rising within her chest. "He feels you slipping away. He told me that while you're gone he's going to probe the minds of the other students—"

"That's not his right," whispered Ben, a crazed glimmer igniting his eyes as he bore down on her. "They are _mine_."

"What the hell are you talking about, _yours?_ " snapped Han, slipping between them and placing a hand on his chest.

Ben recoiled as though the touch hurt him. He stalked to the holotable, picked up the datapad, and hurled it violently against the wall, where it shattered beyond repair. "They're mine," he repeated quietly.

Fists at his sides, he stalked through the other doorway and down the corridor to the crew quarters, where he shut the door.

The silence Ben left behind him was absolute, and even Threepio knew better than to speak into it. He exited at last toward the cockpit, joints humming as he went.

Han and Leia looked at each other across the nothingness their son had left between them.

* * *

 _ **Authors' Note: If you haven't been completely torn apart already, we have one more chapter of this fic to post. Look for it on Monday, April 11. Please drop us a line to let us know what you think! We're so grateful for your thoughtful comments about this story, which has been such a pleasure to write and share. - Tater & Brat**_


	7. Ain't Coming Back

**Authors' Note: Hang on tight because this is it, friends: the final chapter. Thank you for accompanying us on this painful journey with the Solo family. Despite the anguish of TFA, we can truly say that Star Wars is an amazing fandom! We appreciate every review you've given us, and we can't wait to write more to share with you. Thank you again! - Tater & Brat**

* * *

Nothing.

There was nothing when Han opened his eyes, which made him wonder for a moment whether he actually had. Whether he'd actually lived the whole life he believed he had since he shut them, or if it was all just a dream he'd had while frozen in carbonite. Something about the absolute silence seemed a relief and yet utterly wrong. His entire body began to shake as he reached out into the black, jaw trembling so violently he could scarcely form words.

"Leia?"

She didn't answer. He tried to remember if she should have, if she should be here.

A ragged moan reached his ears. _Someone_ was here. Or maybe it had only been him. He ached; some part of his shivering body was injured. Maybe _parts_ , plural. He squeezed his eyes shut against the pain, opened them again, and saw stars.

Literally, saw stars. It took him a minute to realize he was looking out a viewport, into space.

But the shape of the transparisteel panes was all wrong. This wasn't the _Falcon_. And the reclining seat, no, _cot_ he was strapped onto wasn't part of the crew quarters he knew so well.

Panicking, he fumbled at the straps, but he couldn't find their attachments. No blaster, either. His breathing came in ragged gulps and his heart raced. His only thoughts were of escaping his restraints, finding a weapon, getting the hell out. Preferably in that order.

Somehow he loosened the belt around his chest and sat up, hitting his head on a low ceiling and cursing as a rhythmic flood of pain throbbed in his temple. Quite by accident his fingers found a handle and he gripped it, steadying himself as he blinked some more and tried to make sense of where he was. With the other hand he yanked at the strap across his legs and at last freed himself.

He swung his feet down and tried to stand, but slipped on something slick. He grasped the overhead handle with the other hand.

His body fell, slowly, into the ceiling.

Suddenly the straps made sense. But who had put him there?

Figuring out where _there_ was seemed like top priority. He felt around on the ceiling for switches of any kind, preferably to the lights. The black was creeping into the edges of his vision again, and he blinked hard to clear it. Electricity shocked once more through his temple, and he abandoned his search for the light switch to touch his own head. His fingertips found the edge of a bacta patch, below it the crust of dried blood. It matted his hair, too.

Another moan, and he squinted through the dark below him, making out through the dim light of buttons and a screen a second, occupied cot. He stared for a moment, his sluggish brain putting the scattered fragments together: the small, round viewport; the lack of gravity; the cots. He knew this place.

"Chewie?" he croaked, sounding almost as hoarse as a Wookiee himself. "Chewie, pal, you down there?"

He felt along the ceiling for the next handle that he knew would be there, and pulled himself toward the other cot and his friend, who lay still as a corpse on it. As he moved, his thigh bumped against a protruding panel and he swore in pain. Reaching down with one hand, he felt the tattered edge of one trouser leg, which must have been cut or torn away, and found another bacta patch, a large one, likewise surrounded by dried blood. Almost as an afterthought, he ran a hand over his chest and the other leg. No other injuries.

"Chewie?" he rasped again.

Creeping forward, handle by handle, he painstakingly floated across the short distance, cursing when he had to stop yet again as a wave of nausea and dizziness overtook him. He held with both hands onto the handle and stared into the stars until they stopped blurring. Then he went on.

Finally he reached Chewie, rested a tentative hand on one furry shoulder, heard him breathing; but it was shallow. Feeling along his torso he found the Wookiee had been relieved of his weaponry as well. He shook him, and one arm flopped out.

Something wet landed on Han's wrist. He brought it to his lips. Blood.

He felt along Chewie's arm and found the wound.

Another lightning flash, this time of memory. The blaster bolt hitting Chewie's arm, and his howl of pain. Everything came back then. His own voice- _don't think about the other voice, don't_ -screaming his friend's name between curses as he fired back at Ducain and his crew. The laser blast grazing his thigh, knocking him off his feet, his temple cracking against the grating in the _Falcon_ 's hold. The _Falcon_. He felt sick, reeled again, but shook it off, made himself stay present. He couldn't afford to think about her right now. Chewie was depending on Han as he'd depended on Chewie a few hours before.

More pearls of blood floated up from Chewie's arm. Why hadn't the idiot packed it before he tended Han's wounds?

"How're you planning to repay that life debt if you're dead, huh?" he asked through gritted teeth as he gently probed, but there was no answer.

A loose bacta strip clung to the fur. Okay, so Chewie'd at least attempted to treat his own wound first; the adhesive just wasn't designed for people with excessive body hair.

Han released his handhold and let himself drift upward. This time, he expertly found the lightswitch above the head of the cot. It wasn't especially bright, but he cringed nevertheless, sensitive to its flicker. Probably because of his head injury. He found a groove in the wall and pulled open the drawer containing the medkit. This wasn't his ship, but it was one of his ship's escape pods.

"Nice of Ducain not to throw us out the airlock," Han muttered. But Ducain wasn't stupid; he knew better than to piss off General Organa by killing her husband.

Awkwardly, he negotiated his long limbs in the cramped space so he could rotate. Bracing his good foot against the wall, he kicked off to push himself back down toward his injured friend. An extra strap floated up from the cot, writhing like a water plant, so he tied his uninjured leg to it. He found some bacta gel and used it liberally, gently lifting up the fur to make sure the entire gory area was covered. Then he untucked his shirttail, ripped off the bottom, and bound the wound. When that was done, he examined Chewie head to toe. No other injuries were visible.

Han untied his leg and pulled himself back toward his own cot to wait, trying not to see the sticky slick on the floor where Chewie had bled after Ducain had forced them into the tiny space and spat the parting words that had hurt worse than the blaster bolt: _Sorry about your kid._ Although thinking about what had happened to the _Falcon_ was preferable to thinking about Ben.

Lying back and strapping himself in, he tilted his head toward the coordinates on the screen. They'd soon break atmo at Takodana.

"Oh good," Han heaved out. "We're gonna see your girlfriend."

* * *

In all the years he'd known her, even after all the times he'd run to her for help after some failed shenanigan or other, Han had never been inside Maz's personal rooms.

He wasn't certain what he'd expected, but now that he'd seen her sitting room, he could only nod at the cozy, comfortable, overpacked space. He and Chewie reclined on two long, cushioned benches that faced each other across a basin of swirling water, and the closed wooden doors beyond must have led to Maz's sleeping quarters. Maz joked that she'd show Chewie her bedroom later, though her eyes hadn't quite smiled when she'd said it. There were too many things to settle today.

The sitting room smelled like ju powder and Boontaspiced mustard, with a little vanilla thrown in for sweetness, and it almost reminded him of…

He closed his eyes, letting his pounding head rest against the back of the lounging couch. They'd only been on the escape pod for less than half a day, but it still felt good to stretch out and not be strapped down. Then again, he wasn't sure if the weight of gravity and everything he had to face now that one crisis was over was preferable to being adrift in the void of space.

Maz had been waiting for them when their pod splashed down in the lake, and within minutes she'd had them recovered and escorted to her castle by her personal bodyguards. Then she'd produced some sort of medic from the crowd downstairs-one she'd assured them could be trusted not to pry, or talk-who'd seen properly to their wounds. Another servant had helped them get cleaned up and found new clothes for Han, who allowed himself to be led around like a child; he hadn't the presence of mind to manage anything so complex as self-care at the moment.

Now it was far too quiet, and far too many thoughts began snaking into his mind again. He tried to close it, to lock the bars or doors or whatever your brain had to defend against things like pain and regret and horror. But there was no such barrier in his mind, and the shock of the past day slithered in from every corner. That measured, low voice, almost unrecognizable. _Almost_. A boy trying on a man's voice, but not quite fitting into it.

His throat tightened, and he had to squeeze his eyes shut.

The door from the hallway opened and hit something behind it with a heavy thud as Maz tore into the room, as was her preferred method of entering any space. She looked at Han's face, then turned at once toward Chewie, fussing over him for a few moments while Han gathered himself.

"I told you to eat, Wookiee." Maz gestured toward a small table with a plate of meat and cooked grains on it that she'd scooted over to his elbow. "Now do it."

Chewie chuffed.

"I don't care if you lost your appetite in a _garbage chute_ , you fish it out and _eat_."

Han sat forward, reached for a piece of flatbread from the tray next to him even though he'd lost his appetite, too, just to preempt Maz giving him the same order.

"Thanks for all this, Maz," he said, easing himself back again on the cushions. "You didn't have to go to so much trouble."

She turned away from Chewie and watched him through her huge goggles, eyes fixed on his hand holding the flatbread. He tore off a bite-sized piece, though he still didn't eat it. She didn't tell him to. Instead, she pursed her thin lips and went to sit on the lounge at Chewie's feet, where she took a deep breath in and let it out, her tiny shoulders drooping as she did so.

"Han," she said, staring into his face with that unsettling gaze. "Tell me it isn't true. Tell me the HoloNet reports blamed the wrong boy."

Han looked down at the bread in his fingers. Considered eating it just so he'd have an excuse not to reply. Looked at Chewie as though he'd somehow be able to say the words any easier.

Chewie passed a hand over his eyes and wailed.

"It _can_ be true," Han choked out. He struggled against a throat that was closing up again and managed to continue. "It _is_ true. You heard the message Ben sent on the Chedak. And we've known for a long time that he was…"

He let the sentence dangle. That he was what? Drawn to the Dark Side? Obsessed with Vader? _Like_ him?

But surely not enough like him that he could really do what Hux claimed. That red-haired little shit had opened a HoloNet channel with his father's access code, and Han finally realized why the kid looked so familiar when he'd seen him here years ago; Han and Hux's father Brendol had gone through naval training together.

"The Jedi Order is no more," the kid, in pressed uniform and cap, had asserted, with the Commandant standing behind him. "With the help of one of the Republic's own, Ben Solo, son of Generals Leia Organa and Han Solo, Jedi Master Luke Skywalker's apprentices have seen the true power of the Dark Side."

That was what Han heard in the cantina on Rattatak, when suddenly the gun deal he'd been there for went to hell.

Han crumbled the bread in his fist and started to get up. "I need to call Leia, make sure she's all right…"

"I contacted her as soon as I received your pod's automated distress signal," said Maz, raising a hand to keep Han in his seat. "She's sending a pilot to retrieve you both."

Han raised his eyebrows. Leia was sending a _pilot_? Not coming herself? Then again, it probably wasn't safe for her to be on a ship right now. He thought of her turning on the Chedak, hearing that voice, those words, and wanted to vomit.

"Han." Maz's voice, so firm, yet gentle, mercifully drew him back to the present.

He took several slow, deep breaths, tried to focus on the peaceful atmosphere of her room as she went on.

"What _happened_? Why were you on that escape pod? It wasn't Ben, or those _Knights of Ren_ , was it?"

He shook his head, tried to shake away the memory, too, of _Knights of Ben_ on Ben's datapad. He'd turned it into a fucking _joke_ , teasing him about girls.

"No," he said. "It was Gannis Ducain."

With a hiss, Maz rocked back. "Don't tell me the Republic's so desperate to rearm the military that you're going to that lousy wastoid for guns."

Chewie woofed in protest.

"I was delivering the guns to him."

Han's voice sounded distant to his own ears as Maz's rang in his head. _Desperate_. If they hadn't been before, they surely would be now. Leia had been against the decision to dismantle the navy after the Empire fell, apart from their base on Mirrin Prime. They were in for a security nightmare, now, with all the secrets Ben carried with him.

Would they need to relocate the base? Leia would say yes, though the Republic might scoff at the precaution. But the Order now had a team of Jedi trainees, she would insist. Why else would they have gone to the trouble if not for a power grab?

Han's chest tightened. The Order had the Jedi. The Order had Ben.

Ben had gone willingly, had orchestrated the whole thing.

"The rumors say that Ben...that the Knights of Ren murdered the Jedi students," said Maz carefully.

"Worse," said Han. "The Knights of Ren _are_ the Jedi students. Ben seduced them-"

His voice cut out at the word _seduced_. An image of himself and Leia in bed together as she trembled after one of her nightmares. Seduced. Tangled up in the sheets. Afraid. But together.

He didn't know anything, after all. Did he?

He'd heard but not quite believed the same rumors as Maz before he heard Ben's message-he would never call him that other name, Kylo Ren-playing on the Chedak.

"We were in that shithole cantina on Rattatak waiting for Ducain when the news broke," he said. "That was why the deal went bad, I could only think about…"

His son. His beautiful boy who'd been such a fretful infant, who would only sleep in the arms of his parents. Han thought he'd lost sleep before.

"We just took off, and Ducain chased us down, forced us to dock so he could board and take the guns. He took the _Falcon_ , too."

Maz said nothing. There might have been a time when she would have teased him about the oversight, or berated him for such short-sighted decision making. But when a father lost the one thing he treasured most, perhaps it was only natural that the rest of it should slip through his fingers, too, and be gone before he noticed.

Raising her goggles to her forehead, Maz rubbed her eyes. For someone so ancient, it wasn't often that Han thought the spry little woman seemed old. She did now, weighed down by the galaxy.

"You did everything you could for the boy," Maz said. She slid to the edge of the lounge so the tips of her dangling feet touched the floor, and stood. "I'm going to go see if your ship has arrived yet. It should have. You need to go home."

"Home," Han scoffed.

Once upon a time, a young man drunk on victory and love and the prospect of new life believed he could make a home anywhere, so long as _they_ were in it.

What a fool.

The bread he'd crushed was still clenched in his hand, and with a surge of violent energy he threw it. Maz turned her head to follow its trajectory across the room, where it sailed through the door as it swung open, and struck an orange-clad figure square in the vest.

For a moment, Han sat in slack-jawed speechlessness, while Chewie pushed himself awkwardly up from the lounge, yodeling inarticulately to the curly-haired young pilot who stooped to pick up the projectile, eying it in bemusement. The blithe lines of his face flickered as though he wanted to make a quip, but was restraining himself due to the circumstances.

"Poe," Han gritted through his teeth. "What the hell are you doing here?"

* * *

" _You sent Poe?_ " he bellowed the second he found her in their living quarters on Mirrin Prime.

Leia glanced up from the holo in her hands, then looked back down at it again so quickly that it felt as though she couldn't meet his eyes. Hers were red-rimmed. The holo danced in her hands. It was the one of Ben at seven, just after he'd learned to do a cartwheel. Their son tumbled over and over in her hand, giggling and snorting with the joy that lit his face all too seldom. _I'm doing it!_ he shouted again and again. _Look, Mom! Look, Dad! I'm doing it!_

"Put that thing down." Han felt his anger flood with grief. "I don't want to see it."

Leia shook her head, chin quivering.

"Put it down and talk to me."

"We were never good at talking," she whispered. "But fine."

She placed the holo on top of one of the many crates she'd already packed. The tiny figure kept cartwheeling and giggling, its wiry blue form wild with energy to burn. _I'm doing it! Look, Mom! Look, Dad! I'm doing it!_

Leia turned and faced him at last, arms crossed protectively over her torso. Han didn't need a holo to see clear as day a younger version of her with a swollen belly and eyes shadowed by sleeplessness. She'd looked to him for comfort in those days-such misplaced trust. Now she looked up at him, but with her chin jutted in defiance.

"I didn't _send_ Poe, he volunteered."

Han waved his hand dismissively. "And you didn't think how that would make me feel?"

How Poe's presence in their lives had made Ben feel?

"We thought you'd prefer a familiar face instead of a stranger!" Leia shot back.

"No wonder they were never friends. You shipped your son off to be a Jedi and found a replacement!"

Leia inhaled sharply, the pain flashing across her face before she turned away from him again, gripping the edge of a packing crate with both hands. "That's not fair and you know it."

"Well, guess what, sweetheart? Life ain't fair."

"I won't be lectured about something I can never take back," snapped Leia, facing him again. "What were we supposed to do? Let Kes and Shara's boy be raised by the orphanage? After all they did for us?"

Han raked a hand over his face. "Everyone did everything for us."

"Stop it, Han."

"And nothing we did could ever be enough."

He knew he wasn't talking about Shara and Kes anymore, could see in Leia's welling eyes that she knew it, too. But somehow saying their son's name was beyond his ability just now.

"How could it be? Your idea of planning for the future was to hang curtains in the _Falcon_."

"That was a figure of speech!"

Her lips twitched into a brittle smile that crumbled before it could fully form. "I might have known this was the more likely outcome."

She aimed to wound, and she did it with a hell of a lot more accuracy than Gannis Ducain, the blow rendering Han mute while she reloaded.

"I _needed_ you today!" she shouted.

Was it really still today? It seemed a lifetime ago he'd been on the _Falcon,_ living a nightmare that hadn't ended yet.

"And where were you? In some seedy cantina losing that hunk of junk that should have been sent to the scrap yard decades ago to a two-cred smuggler."

"I was on my way here as soon as I heard!" Han roared. "That's why Ducain was after me, I abandoned the deal to come home. Because after what I heard on the Chedak, I needed-"

"You _heard_?" Leia cut him off. "I _saw_. Everything. As it happened."

"What do you mean, saw?"

Leia pressed her lips together and took a shuddering breath. She was afraid. Even in the midst of his anger, Han stepped forward to put his hands on her shoulders.

She backed away.

"Tell me," he said, dropping his hands to his sides. His leg ached, so he edged toward a crate and sat down on it.

"This was no dream, Han," she said as she turned to watch the happy child on the holo. "But it was the same...presence. It felt the same."

"Are-are you sure?"

Leia swallowed. "I should've been sure from the beginning. Yes, I'm sure. At first I thought this was a dream, too. But it wasn't."

"What'd you see?" Han asked, wishing he didn't have to find out. Knowing he had to.

"What Luke saw," she replied, "and I felt what he felt. Frozen. Betrayed and helpless as his own flesh and blood destroyed everything. There were a few who...resisted. They were killed."

His mouth asked, even though he didn't want to hear the answer. "Who killed them?"

Them. Kids. Ben's age, younger.

"The Knights of Ren. Ben...Ben ordered them to do it. He-"

Her voice hitched and she turned away from the holo to blink at the blank wall. She'd already taken down the photos, all of Ben's art.

Han's mind caught at the one safe thing-if one could even call it safe-in that whole scene of horror. "You said it was the same presence as in your nightmares? But you were seeing it through Luke's eyes?"

"The presence put me there, as though Luke and I had to be the same person in that moment. I can't describe it. But he wanted both of us to suffer. I felt his-his gloating. His glee."

" _Whose_?" Han demanded, his stomach gripped by a nausea that surpassed anything he'd experienced in flight. "Whose glee?"

 _Not Ben's, please..._

"I don't know!" Leia cried.

"And it held you there, frozen in place?"

"No," she said, rocking her body forward with arms crossed over it as though she, too, felt ill. "Ben did. He made Luke watch. And... _it_ made me watch."

Leia's chin quivered, but she bit down on her lip, took a breath, and went on.

"When Ben ordered the murders-"

"Stop."

A wave of dizziness threatened to topple him, and he held onto the edge of the crate to allow what she'd just said to sink in.

"When the Knights of Ren carried out the order, Ben's hold on Luke slipped. Luke threw up a shield, grabbed some of the kids, and escaped."

"None of this makes any sense," Han said when he regained his balance, raking both hands through his hair, shoving the heels of his hands against the sockets of his aching eyes. _Fuck_ , he needed to sleep. He didn't know if he'd ever be able to again. "This Force stuff...I've never understood it...Wish I'd never…"

"You wish you'd never what? Had a child?"

Han was on his feet again. She knew he loved Ben more than anything. Or did she? Did Ben?

"Listened to you," he said low, leaning in toward her, pointing to emphasize his words. "I never wanted to send him away, but you insisted. You said Luke would be able to help him. Instead he just gave him enough power to…"

He shook his head, straightened up, turned away from her. Ran his hand over his stubbled chin as he looked around their half-packed apartment. Had she touched the rest of Ben's things?

Without another word to Leia he strode from the living room, retracing the familiar path to Ben's room. He could've navigated it blind, he'd walked it so many times in the dark in the middle of the long nights, the tiles cold against his bare feet, to soothe Ben in his crib. They'd finally donated that crib to the orphanage when it became apparent that their son would never sleep there.

Gripped by the same bone-deep exhaustion he'd experienced back in those days, he stood arrested in the doorway, afraid to turn on the light switch. The shadows stretched long in this room, moonlight reaching in from the window above the single bed. Ben had outgrown that bed long ago, but by then he'd been with Luke. He'd only spent a few nights here since he left, yet the room felt as though he was still here.

He switched on the light. Everything was as he'd left it, even though Poe had come and gone. All Ben's games and toys, his favorites being the holochess set and miniature X-wings that hurt like the stars when you stepped on them barefoot in the middle of the night-which had frequently been the case for Han, who'd gone there to sleep more often than not.

This place, crammed full of memories, was the closest thing to home, after the _Falcon_.

Behind him, Leia's boots clicked in the hall as she approached the room. He didn't turn, because something shoved into the corner by the desk caught his eye. Han crossed the room to it, leg aching as he knelt to pick up Ben's backpack. The one he'd carried to school every day on base, almost as big as he was when he first started at age four, but eventually grew into. He'd taken it with him whenever they traveled, as father and son most of the time, when Leia deemed the trips educational enough to merit missing school, as a whole family occasionally, when she could get free from her responsibilities, or make her responsibilities fit with vacations. The last time, Han guessed, had been when they'd gone to Yavin for Kes Dameron's funeral. Not exactly a jolly holiday. From there, Ben had gone on with Luke to begin training.

He'd never carried the backpack again.

Not sure why he was torturing himself, Han started to open it.

"You said you got a message on the Chedak," said Leia from the doorway. "What did it say?"

Clutching the backpack to his chest, he looked at her. "Sit down, Leia."

Her eyes rounded and, for once, she did as he said, making her way to the small bed. The springs squeaked as she lowered herself onto the worn quilt.

The best way to finish was to begin.

"Chewie and I got back to the _Falcon_ as soon as we could when we heard," he said. "After we raised the ramp and got to the cockpit, we heard the message. It was playing on auto-loop on the Chedak. He'd sent it probably at the same time as the news hit the 'Net."

"Ben?" asked Leia, her voice barely a whisper.

Han nodded. He raised his eyebrows: _Do you really want to hear?_

She nodded back, a quick jerk of her head, lips pressed together in a tight line.

He could recite it from memory. It had played over and over again, never stopping, through liftoff and into hyperspace, as he sped toward the place he'd called home, no, to the _woman_ who had been home to him. The words wound through his brain as Ducain and his men captured the _Falcon_ , as they dragged the bleeding Han and Chewie into the pod, only stopping when the thieves shut the hatch to jettison them into the stars.

"Ben Solo is dead," he said, the hollowness of his voice sounding to his own ears almost as if it, too, were being played back through an outdated Chedak. "In his place rises Kylo Ren, Master of the Knights of Ren. Together with our Supreme Leader, we will continue the work of Darth Vader…"

He paused, studied Leia to see how she was taking this, but her gaze was locked on the backpack he clutched, her face a mask, blank, unreadable.

"We will continue the work of Darth Vader, in the noble effort to bring order to the Galaxy. Resistance will be punished and eliminated."

Unlike the message, Han fell silent after reciting it once, though it continued on a loop in his mind, coiling around his heart, squeezing. Even now, speaking them aloud, it didn't seem possible these could be the words of his son. Certainly he was just parroting somebody else's...the little Hux brat, this _Supreme Leader_ , whoever the hell that was...It was almost a relief when Leia finally spoke, just to cut it off, though the words themselves were the farthest thing from comforting.

"What a shame you lost the Chedak with the _Falcon_ ," she said as she got to her feet. Giving the bedroom a cursory sweep of her eyes, she turned on her heel to exit. "It might have been valuable intel for us to trace these new enemies of the Republic before they gain any traction. The identity of this _Supreme Leader_. Hux mentioned that on the holos, too..."

The Republic, the Republic, always the goddamn Republic with her. What about _Ben_?

Han clutched the thoughts to himself, along with the backpack, as he followed Leia out, a sudden calm stealing over him as he knew, suddenly, what he had to do.

"Poe said you're moving bases." He stated the obvious, for lack of anything else to say to her.

"Obviously, since Ben knows too much," she replied stiffly as she entered their bedroom, beelining for the closet. "Don't you intend to come with us, _General_?"

"Someone's gotta look for Ben, haven't they?"

Hangers scraped on the rod. "Oh, and that someone is you, is it? How do you propose finding him in your nonexistent ship?"

"I'll get it back."

"Here we go," Leia said with a roll of her eyes as she emerged from the closet, almost buried beneath an armload of formal gowns and diplomatic attire.

"Ben's gotta have a place to go home to. If he doesn't know where the new base is-"

"He can't."

" _I know that_. But where is home? To him?"

"I don't know!" She dropped the clothes in an untidy pile on the bed and leaned forward, covering her face with her hands. "I don't know, I don't know, just stop!"

"Your wish is my command, Your Highness."

She sobbed then, her shoulders shaking as though in spasm. For a moment Han considered taking her in his arms, but he couldn't. If he did, he'd just stay, and he couldn't. Not now. Not this time.

Even as he remained rooted to the spot, the flood of her tears unlocked his own anguish. Yet all he could do was stand there and watch as Leia cried for both of them.

A crinkle at chest level brought his attention to the backpack he was crushing against him. He looked down, his gaze fixed on the zipper pull, where Ben had tied a tiny X-wing starfighter with a piece of string. He grasped it, barely feeling the sharp edges, and tugged it open.

The stale smell of old paper and spilled milk wafted upward. The dark interior was dotted with crumbs and scraps of the torn and broken craft projects they'd decorated the home with anyhow. He pulled out a holocomic, grimaced as he remembered reading it to Ben and, later, with him-sometimes on the sly, knowing Leia would ask if Ben had finished his homework first. Ben's voice, laughing, trying on different accents as he imitated all the characters, and the booming voice of the narrator: _Will our hero survive the asteroid? Can he escape the villain's clutches and make it safely home?_ Always a cliffhanger, Han thought.

If only real life worked out like the holos.

As he shoved the comic back in the bag, he came across one of Ben's notebooks, the edges curling. Class notes, or they were supposed to be, but as the frustrated teachers had told them in many a conference, Ben spent more time doodling in the margins than anything. Han tucked the bag under his arm and flipped through, quickly at first, then slowing as the shape of Ben's writing made his heart constrict, his son's voice echoing through his mind.

He couldn't do this yet.

His gaze went instead to the action scenes that danced along the edges. For all Ben had struggled with poor handwriting, he wasn't a half-bad artist (which had made Leia sure he _could_ have legible writing, if he would just _try_ ). The dark-haired figure he'd sketched was clearly a self-portrait, dressed in Jedi clothes and wielding a red lightsaber. Behind him cowered three figures: a large, hairy one carrying a bowcaster; a man crouched and pointing a blaster; and a woman aiming a smaller blaster. Facing Ben and the others was the dark shape Ben was defending the other three against. It was huge, shadowy, and it exuded power, with black lightning bolts shooting from its hands and eyes.

Han almost felt something like the pull of a smile, except that the coil around his stomach constricted tighter. Leia's nightmares, the ones she shared with Ben, had always been of shadow presences. Han frowned. There was no face on the figure Ben had drawn. He'd scratched the blackness above its pointed shoulders so hard that he'd torn through the paper.

Could this drawing be a Force vision? Or was it simply a small, frightened child's attempt to fight the monsters no one, try as they might, could protect him from?

Turning the page, he found another drawing of Ben as a Jedi, this one with a speech bubble over his head. He squinted to make out the childish scrawl: _Hang on, Mom and Dad, I'm on my way! I'll save you!_ In the next picture, Leia had stopped firing her blaster and had a balloon over her head, too. _Hurry, son! We can't hold him off much longer! He's too strong!_ The illustrated version of Han said, _Don't worry, sweetheart. Ben will save us! He's the strongest in the Force!_ and Chewie's _Woof!_ must be in agreement.

Below that, Ben's chicken scratch read, _Will our interpid hero get there in time? Will he rescue his family and vankwish the evil? Find out in next week's installment of Ben Solo: Jedi Master._

Han flipped to the next page, but there were no more drawings. No more school notes, either. The rest of the notebook was blank. That must have been when he'd gone off to train with Luke, head filled with visions of mastering the Force and overcoming the darkness within him. Instead, Ben was the one who needed to be rescued.

A sniffing sound drew him back to the present scene, and he saw Leia wipe her eyes with her fingers, square her hunched shoulders, and march back to the closet. Soldiering on.

Tucking the precious cargo back inside the backpack, Han zipped it back up, slid the strap over his shoulder.

"Come with me," he said, more a question than anything.

"Han..."

Her tone told him the answer, but he'd never been one to shut up when he ought to. "Let's find him together."

"And who would lead the Resistance against these Knights of Ren? Their Supreme Leader?"

"Oh, I don't know, Leia. How about _someone else_ for a change?"

"They need me."

" _They_ need. What about _Ben_ needs? _I_ need? What the hell do _you_ need?"

For the space of a heartbeat, she looked back at him. Not for the first time in his life, he willed her to say _him_. She needed him. Their son. Stars knew they were all Han had ever needed.

"I need you to leave me alone so I can finish packing," Leia replied, and his heart resumed beating as if it had been shocked back to rhythm. "Unless you mean to help."

"If you give me a ship, I can help. The best way I know how."

"Oh, by running away again?" She didn't look at him, but continued stuffing the clothing into a trunk, heedless of organization or folding.

Han's nostrils flared. "When did I run away?"

Leia shot a glare at him.

"I'd like to know. When did I ever actually leave? Unlike Luke, who did nothing _but_ leave? Why weren't you mad at him for running off to become a Jedi?"

"I was. I am."

"Where the hell is he, anyway?"

Fear clutched at him suddenly that Luke might not have survived his escape attempt, but Leia replied through gritted teeth, "I don't know. I can feel he's still alive, but he's hidden himself. He's hiding something from me."

"Think he went after Ben?"

"No. I-no. He's not running _to_ something. He's running away." Her eyes settled on him gravely. "Just like you. You always intended to leave. Your personal interests always mattered more to you than the greater good."

"The greater…" Han shook his head. "As I recall, you weren't thinking much about the greater good when you and Lando and Chewie went traipsing across the galaxy to rescue me from Jabba."

"Perhaps I should have."

"It's a little late to regret saving me, princess."

"It's never too late."

He watched her shoving the clothes in. The trunk wouldn't close, but she kept pressing down, first with her hands, then her elbows, until Han couldn't stand it anymore. He grasped her wrists and turned her roughly to him.

"Let the goddamned droids pack your goddamned clothes!"

She wrenched against his grip. "Let go of me!"

"Let go? You want me to let go?" Han opened his fingers, releasing her wrists, held his hands up, palms out and empty, as he stepped back from her. "Fine. I won't hold you." He stalked toward the bedroom door, wheeling around for his parting shot. "But there's one person I won't ever let go of, despite what his mother wishes."

"You think I _want_ to let go of Ben? That I want to admit I couldn't see the Dark in him? I don't, not any more than I wanted to admit that Darth Vader was my father. But if Luke doesn't think he can bring him back, why should you?"

"BECAUSE I'M HIS FATHER!"

He hitched the backpack higher on his shoulder and went back into the living quarters.

"Where are you going?" she shouted from the bedroom. Too proud to follow.

"To see a guy about a ship."

"You'll need one. The Resistance certainly won't give you any more to lose."

Han was too angry to reply. Too angry, and too arrested by the holo image of Ben cartwheeling atop a crate. _Look, Mom! Look, Dad! I'm doing it!_

 _We're looking, kid,_ his own recorded voice replied from out of view.

But Han couldn't look now. He blinked against the tears he could no longer keep at bay, blindly reaching out to flip off the power switch.

When the room was silent, he opened his eyes again, and without a final glance around the apartment, shambled to the door.

"I'm looking, kid."


End file.
